"But Scott", I hear you ask, "you hate throwing away your vote. Why?!"
Well, I lived in California and voted after school and work. By the time I got to the polls - at 5:45 PM PDT, President Carter had already conceded to Ronald Reagan. Nimrod. So my vote wasn't wasted so much as useless before I voted. So I voted my heart.
Why vote at all, you ask. Well, there were down ballot races that were important - and probably changed when Carter conceded too early.
Back to John. John Anderson was what was, at that time, a liberal Republican. We don't have those anymore. He was socially liberal / libertarian, but financial conservative. California had a shit-load of those until Pete Wilson screwed the pooch with the anti-Hispanic propositions.
Oddly, I was around when the amendment happened to drop the voting age to 18 (if they were old enough to fight in Vietnam, they were old enough to vote - went the saying). And, even odder, it didn't effect me at all. My first presidential election was when I turned 21. The previous one was when I was 17.
I also remember my first vote period. It was in the 1980 Democratic primary. I selected 5 electors pledged to Jessie Jackson and 3 electors pledged to Jimmy Carter. An elector system that was only used once in California.