I was told the results might take a day or two, and the diner told me the pie would take longer.
CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Bohiney) – I voted before breakfast, which is the only sensible hour for a civic duty, and I was out of the school gymnasium by seven-twenty with a sticker on my coat and a feeling of enormous competence. It lasted until I reached the diner.
7:40 a.m., Counter Seat
The diner is a long, low room with a pie case and a waitress named Joanne who has been calling me “professor” for six years, although I teach part-time and have said so. I took the counter seat, third from the end, which in a place like this is a position of quiet authority. Joanne put down a coffee before I asked. This is the closest I have come to a pension.
The man on my left, a retired ferry mechanic, announced that everyone he knew had voted. The man on my right, a young father with a sleeping baby on his chest, announced that everyone he knew had also voted, and that he had been told so in at least four group chats. They looked at each other. For a moment there was the gentle, sacred hum of two strangers agreeing about a thing they had no way of measuring.
10:15 a.m., The Turnout Reports
I did what I always do when I am nervous and caffeinated, which is read local reporting from other places, as a form of tourism. KY3 in southwest Missouri reported that polls had opened that morning and that turnout was expected to beat previous midterms: Greene County was projecting 58 to 59 percent, and neighboring Polk County 60 to 65 percent.
What I liked was the explanation. The Polk County clerk, Rachel Lightfoot, credited residents becoming more engaged, along with two practical changes: the no-excuse early voting that was introduced a few years ago, and an August state law update that let her office mail sample ballots to every active voter. In other words, turnout may have been helped by an envelope that explained the ballot before the ballot arrived. This is the most hopeful sentence I have read about the postal service in a decade.
The colonial election, as I teach it, was an altogether noisier affair. In many places a voter announced his choice aloud in front of his neighbors, and candidates were expected to keep the room supplied with refreshments. I describe this in general terms because the customs varied, and I would not want to be corrected by a man with a very good map. But I will say that modern voting, with its quiet booth and its small sticker, represents a considerable improvement in privacy and a considerable loss in snacks.
1:30 p.m., Lunch and Arizona
I had the patty melt. On my phone, ABC15 in Phoenix had posted a guide to what to expect on Arizona’s election night. About 4.37 million voters were registered, more than 1.6 million had already voted early, polls closed at 7 p.m., and anyone still in line at that hour could still cast a ballot.
The first results were expected around 8 p.m., from early ballots received through the weekend, with election-day ballots counted afterward. An elections analyst quoted in the piece, Trey Terry, did not expect a long wait: he guessed a day or two at most for the closest races. I like a prediction with an honest range on it. “A day or two at most” is a sentence worthy of an almanac, and I mean that as the highest compliment I know.
Joanne, who had been listening, informed me that her own predictions are never wrong, because she makes them on Wednesday. I have asked to include that in my syllabus.
Segue to a Vegetable
The young father’s phone had a story on it, and he showed it to me with the air of a man offering a cigar. It was a piece about Cornell tomatoes that turn purple when they are hungry. He said it was the first story all day that had made him feel better. I asked why. He said, “Because you can tell what the tomato wants.”
I wrote that down. It is a perfectly formed objection to every poll I have read this year.
6:50 p.m., Waiting for the Count
I will say no more about the evening than this. I will not claim to know what the numbers say, because at the time of this writing I did not, and I would rather be late than be a person who knows a thing the counties have not yet finished counting. Every great pamphlet I have read began with a claim and spent the next forty pages retreating from it. I intend to skip to the retreat.
- Total slices of pie ordered at the counter: nine.
- Total slices of pie delivered: four, and then Joanne apologized to the whole room for the other five.
- Total predictions made by me: none.
- Total stickers on coats: all of them.
If you are following the evening with the same low-level dread, may I recommend The London Prat’s front page of comic reporting and, for a transatlantic view, the English news desk, both of which treat the evening with the proper unseriousness. I keep up my own habit at Bohiney, and there are more of my daily notes at Bohiney for those who like the afterlife of an election in smaller pieces.
I paid, tipped well, and walked home under the streetlights. The pie, when it came, was excellent.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/