DES MOINES, Iowa — After what Carson Moran had to go through to do it, waiting two hours in line to vote was nothing.
Moran is a criminal justice student at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. She requested an absentee ballot a while ago, but when she called the Polk County Auditor's office, they said her request was either denied or lost in the mail.
At 20 years old, this is the first election Moran is eligible to vote in. She wasn't about to let that go to waste.
"My grandmother actually fought for women to have the right to vote," Moran said. "So it’s very important to me as a woman to exercise that right to vote."
So Moran called her extended family, and they agreed to give her her Christmas present early in the form of the money to fly home to Ankeny to vote in person. She got here Sunday, and cast her ballot early on Monday.
She went downtown Monday, and two hours later, she was out; ballot cast.
Moran is not the only one to go to great lengths to vote in this year's election; there have been several stories of many others having to fly across state lines to cast their ballot.
And in South Carolina Friday, one woman stood in line for three hours the day her baby was due.
Jennifer Levy is an Iowa native who now lives in San Francisco. She knows that her state's results are a foregone conclusion, so she flew back to her home state to volunteer as a poll observer.
"I just felt like I needed to do something to help in this election that was meaningful," said Levy. "It’s a little bit predetermined how California will go, and I think so many of us were activated in trying to find ways to have an impact."
Moran hopes her story, and those of others like her, will inspire someone else to go the distance to get to the polls.