Well before the polls opened at 8:30 a.m., Delores McMillian was standing outside Nationals Park, a facility known best for baseball and beer lines. But on Tuesday, the wait for was ballots, and McMillian arrived at 6 a.m. — the very first person there.

“Get it done. Get it done,” the 71-year-old Southeast resident said of why she arrived so early. “I am the first person to ever vote at the stadium… [it’s a] little bit of history.”

She said it felt “awesome” to cast her ballot. “[It’s] the most important election that I’ve had in my lifetime.”

Home to a championship team, Nationals Park was nonetheless abuzz with activity for the first time in months on the first day of early voting in D.C. Of 32 early voting locations in the city, the ballpark is one of six “super vote centers” — venues that can accommodate a large number of voters while allowing them to remain socially distant. The other venues include the Entertainment and Sports Arena in Ward 8, the Capital One Arena, the Omni Shoreham Hotel, the University of the District of Columbia, and Union Market.

More than a hundred voters were in line outside Nationals Park by the time voting began; a similar line wrapped around Capital One Arena. By late morning, the lines outside Capital One had dissipated and voters were getting in and out quickly.

D.C. isn’t the only place to repurpose its now-empty sports facilities for voting; under pressure from some professional athletes like LeBron James, cities ranging from Atlanta to San Francisco are using arenas, parks and stadiums for voting.

Rosa Clark, 78, walks with a cane, but she got in line at Nationals Park around 8 o’clock. “Somebody else in line gave me a stool to sit on,” she said.

Clark remembers when her mother was prevented from voting in Newport News, Virginia because of a poll tax. She says that knowing this history, she could never miss an election.

“My sister and I took her to vote for the very first time. And she voted for Kennedy,” said Clark, who lives in Southwest. “And I’ve been voting ever since.”

Some of Clark’s younger relatives told her they’re not planning to vote. “I remind them of what I remember,” she said, “When you think about the people who have died, who were beaten, water hose turned on them, how can you not vote?”

That same sentiment was echoed by Bianca Burton, a Ward 7 resident who wore a shirt with the image of the late John Lewis on it as she voted at the Entertainment and Sports Arena, the home of the Washington Mystics in Ward 8.

“It is important to vote as an African American woman… whose ancestors have marched for me to vote, who have died for me to vote, who have made it a point and a present for us to have equal rights, especially in light of everything that’s going on,” she said.

A number of voters said it was important to physically cast their vote in-person. A few said they never received their absentee ballot in the mail. One voter said she make a mistake filling hers out, and rather than request a new one, she decided to vote in-person.

In deep blue D.C. — which delivered only 4% of its votes to President Trump in 2016, the lowest percentage of any U.S. jurisdiction — people said they were still enthusiastic about casting their vote for president.

“Get rid of Trump!” one man said when asked by he was voting.

“We’re not one of the competitive states, but everyone has to do their part,” said Maggie Gray, a Southwest resident who cast her ballot for Joe Biden. For her, this election is about “what Biden says: the heart of [and] the soul of the country.”

Some voters were focused on local races. Bridgette Hudson, 45, cast a ballot for Biden and for Ed Lazere in the D.C. Council’s crowded At-Large race.

“Locally, I think there’s a lot of really important issues happening here in D.C. And you know, I say local government is where it’s at,” she said. “The national elections, great. But the issues in D.C. — homelessness, our schools — you know, that’s really important as well.”

Hudson was also thinking a lot about the COVID-19 health emergency. Her sisters are both nurses working on the front lines of the pandemic. She said she wants government leaders to be guided by science in their response to the pandemic.

Allan Badovinac cast a vote for Joe Biden and for At-Large candidate Marcus Goodwin. He wants to see new leadership on the federal and local level. In D.C., he’s concerned about getting the economy back up and running.

“I think more openness from the administration about what is exactly going on in the city during the pandemic because Mayor Bowser is not very forthcoming, including the city council,” said Badovinac, who works as a chef.

Voters said the process of casting their ballot was simple and felt safe. People wore masks and distanced while in line. Inside the voting centers, plexiglass separated poll workers from voters as they checked in.

“No wait, which is amazing,” said Dianne, 33, who voted around noon at the Capital One Arena.

“I have family in New York, and there’s been a line for three, four hours,” said Dianne, who only wanted to give her first name. She said she’ lost family members to the coronavirus and find it hard to see the president show “no compassion, no sympathy.”

“[He] thinks that a miracle is going to happen, it’s just going to go away. And it clearly is not,” she said. Dianne brought her six-year-old daughter with her to vote, “so she can know what it’s like, you know, to participate in a democracy and make a change.”

More than 66 million Americans have already voted in these elections, surpassing the early vote total for all of 2016 with one week still to go. D.C. is the final jurisdiction in the region to kick off its early voting period, which will continue through Nov. 2.

Maryland began in-person voting yesterday and shattered its record for early votes cast in a single day. More than 160,000 people cast a ballot, shooting past the previous record of 143,000 on the last day of early voting four years ago.

In Virginia, nearly 1.2 million people have voted in-person since the early voting period began Sept. 18. Another 760,000 have returned ballots by mail or drop box so far.

By the end of the first day of early voting in D.C., more than 20,000 people had cast ballots. That included 1,552 at Nationals Park, making it the most heavily used of all the 32 vote centers.

Early voting sites in D.C. will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. through Nov. 2. On Election Day, the sites will serve as general polling places. During both early voting and on Election Day, any voter can vote at any of the voting sites.

Dee Dwyer contributed reporting.