CrossRoads Farm

Election Day

02 November, 2004 - 4:17 pm

I went to vote first thing this morning. I got to the school at about 7:45. The process was downright colonial. J and L from the town clerks office were there with Bebe and Millie to check our name off the list. Millie handed me two ballot. One was a white Xerox copy for my votes for Justice of the Peace. I would have to pick seven of those. The other was the ballot. It was a huge sheet of yellow paper. All the rest of my votes went on this sheet and I was instructed to only mark one candidate for each office.
I waited my turn outside the voting booths. There were four of these. Simple booths with red white and blue striped curtains on each one. After just a moment it was my turn.

I went through the curtain and pulled it behind me. There was a shelf barely big enough for the ballot and a mechanical pencil was tied to the shelf with a piece of cotton string and some Scotch tape. Pencil. Strange now that I think of it. Though at the time I didn’t think of it.

I placed an ‘x’ next to the names of the candidates I was voting for and left the booth where I had to stop at another table. I didn’t recognize the woman there but she checked my name off on another, identical list of registered voters. I wonder what happens if the two lists don’t match at the end of the day. I was directed to Constable S standing at a third table.

The constable had two large metal boxes on his table. Padlocks hung from each box. He had me fold my ballots and stick the yellow one in one box and the white one in the other.

And that was it. I was done. D will be voting on the way home. I haven’t had the news on all day.

With any luck at all it will be over tonight.

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