And Now the Wait Truly Begins

Just returned from voting. Was amazed that there were at least 5-7 different presidential candidates listed and sad to see many state and more local spots that were entirely non-contested (that's not always a bad situation but ...).

I voted a mix of Dems, GOP (yes, really - party affiliation means little to me and I knew at least two excellent GOP candidates running at the state or local level who have earned my respect), Greenies, Progressives, and at least one of our more oddball Vermont-only parties. Patrick Leahy, our long-time Democratic senator, and Bernie Sanders, our sole U.S. House Rep (Independent) deserved my vote and received them. After reading and researching, I ended up taking former Governor Howard Dean's recommendation to vote for Peter Clavelle (D) for governor; Jim Douglas (R) has not been as bad as I expected but he's been quite horrible as governor, spending much of his time running around outside VT for Bush at a time when even Republicans here no longer support Bush.

Was delighted to hear turnout was high (not surprising here, where our annual town meetings are standing room-only events, where kids are included to impress early on the value of civic participation) and even learned our little burg actually had lines of people waiting for short periods (Woodbury where I live is tiny).

And I was never more happy to see those huge paper ballots and know that my neighbors will carefully hand count each after 7 PM. In fact, in Vermont, about 5 in every 6 towns still count by hand. No voter challengers, just lots of nice people doing the right thing in a participatory democracy.

I love my adopted state.