If the rain falling earlier this morning wasn't invigorating it was at least slightly cool and relaxing, offering reprieve from heating, in cars and polling locations, more appropriate for last week's frigid weather. My location, an elementary school classroom, was fully staffed to accommodate relatively high turnout for two precincts. At each of a pair of tables, two workers with registries; a third with a record sitting beside them; one presenting cards for use with the room's eight or so Diebold voting machines; one accepting them after the electoral verdict and directing voters to yet another station, a commandeered teacher's desk with a girl behind and round stickers reading "I Voted Today" in a neat pile on top.
This was the second time I voted electronically. I activated the beige contraption, asseverated by touch-screen this or that candidate and measure, confirmed my selections from a ticker tape reproduction, and with a final tap of my index finger cast the ballot. Now I wait, until the first totals are made public tonight, content with my exercise of a right and privilege.