EMERGENCY!

Well, not really.

But the polling machines were not working when I went to vote this morning. Luckily they had a stash of "emergency ballots," one of which I filled out and stuffed into a "secrecy envelope". Supposedly they will take them downtown this morning and count them there.

But then the machines started working again, and M got to vote on one of them.

I hope my vote counts. But it's really an act of faith, this whole voting thing. You do your little piece, and then you have to trust the octogenarians manning the voting polls to follow all the procedures correctly. And then you have to trust that the television networks won't prematurely and inaccurately call the race, causing the western states to not bother showing up to vote. And then you have to cross your fingers and hope that voting patterns will fall such that the electoral college results will line up with what the people actually demand. Not to mention, hoping that there is no need to involve the supreme court at the end of all this.

Hope. Trust. Faith.

Democracy is kind of like a religion.