Here’s my personal nightmare for tonight:
John McCain barely squeaks out a win.
Barack Obama either wins the popular vote or comes very, very close to it.
Obama refuses to concede.
We end up with 2000’s fiasco all over again.
At that point, I might need to start drinking.
On a more positive note, I heard some very heartening news out of Wilton, New Hampshire. It seems in that small town, they know how to run elections right.
They’re using paper ballots, and they have a five-person process set up to count them.
Person #1 reads the ballot and calls out the vote.
Person #2 looks over Person #1’s shoulder and verifies what they say.
Person #3 marks a tally to record the vote.
Person #4 looks over Person #3’s shoulder and verifies what they mark.
And Person #5 collects the counted ballots, bundles them in stacks of 25, and sits on them to make sure they’re not counted twice.
No, there is no Person #6 to verify the efforts of Person #5’s bottom. And yes, while I think I’m more than qualified to serve as a person #5, I have not offered my posterior for posterity.
That, folks, is how elections ought to be run.
