Yesterday was election day, and so I took myself and my four year old down to our precinct's poll location and voted. The plan had been for me to plop her in her stroller and walk there, since it is conveniently located at the end of our block, and then she would have been confined and I wouldn't have had to worry about her wandering around (she will still sit nicely in a stroller, believe it or not!). Unfortunately, by the time Alison was up from her nap, a misty rain had started, so we drove instead and didn't use the stroller at all. I was slightly concerned about how it would go, since the parking lot was pretty full when we got there and I didn't know how long we would have to wait, but with a little bag of animal crackers in hand, Alison walked into the building and stood quietly in line until it was my turn to vote. She finished her animal crackers just as we got to the front of the line, but agreed to stand quietly with her hands in her pockets until we were done. She even got a sticker when we were all done.

We used a new voting system this year. In the past we had used punch cards, but in the wake of hanging chads, we now have a large paper ballot where you connect the two parts of the arrow of the candidate or issue that you are voting for. Then the ballot gets fed into a scanner and read that way. At least there is a paper trail in case there is any question about tampering or whatnot.

I'm happy to say that in the statewide races, I voted for the winning candidates, and 3 out of the 5 issues went the way I voted, too. However, most of the rest of the people I voted for didn't win, unless they were running unopposed. That's not really all that surprising, seeing as we live in Republicanville and I'm not a Republican. But at least I voted!