This is kind of odd, writing my post for the day after the election, on the day OF the election.  I generally write my posts the day before and then schedule them to publish at 3am EST the following day.  But this process feels a little awkward because I have no idea what the outcome will be as I write these words, and I am certainly unsure of your mood today.  But anyhoo…

I must say that we still have a great country! Not necessarily the politicians, but the people.  Those who make up the grit of this great nation are the ones I’m proud of.

So my wife and I went in fairly early.  The voting for us took place at the local elementary school.  As we got closer to the entrance, we started to see the candidate’s signs littering both sides of the road.  “Oh look.  More signs.  Yeah…”  (I’ve had my fill of signs for at least another 4 years.)  We then proceeded to make our way into the building to cast our concerns.

We the people…

One of the great things about voting in the US is the fact that it is done locally.  And I’m not talking ‘City local’, but ‘neighborhood local’.

We instantly recognized two of the people helping with the voting process.  One was a woman from our neighborhood; she was checking ID’s with voter registrations.  The other was a man that also lived nearby (a consulting client, actually), who was helping people in the voting booths.  So not only were we taking part in our ‘right to request a candidate’, but we were interacting with those in our local community.  It is in these moments when I realize that we really ARE the lifeblood of this nation. After placing our votes and getting our cute little red, white and blue stickers as a proclamation of participation, we went on our way.

Now what?

The hardest part about election day, for me, is the waiting process.  I mean, you’d think that with today’s technology they’d be able to come up with the results the second the polls closed.

So here I am, spending the rest of my day trying to act as if it’s like any other.  Telling myself I won’t check the news every five minutes, that I’ll just let it all play out and then see who won.  But this time around it has felt more like laying in bed, early on Christmas morning, trying to sleep as your heart pounds with anticipation.  Accept there’s no cheer or joy or mistletoe.  Just time to kill.

Did you get your sticker?

For those of you who don’t live in the US, your input is more than welcome.  Just because you don’t have a sticker doesn’t mean you can’t join our club.

So what was your experience on election day?  Did you vote?  Did you anticipate the results or just ignore the hype?  I’d love to hear your thoughts about Tuesday and all of its electable electricity (or lack there of).