In which the Meridian recounts a happy voting experience. No--really!

Most everyone with a modem has been writing up his/her responses to the results of yesterday's election. This won't be about that. Nor will it be an account of malfeasance at my precinct's polling place. This will instead be a happy account of how my voting experience went on Tuesday . . . because it was a happy one.

Some context: As some of you may remember, I recently moved to a smaller apartment, though in the same complex. Back in late September or early October, the county election office sent me a card asking me to confirm my address. I confess to being a bit slow in returning it, but I figured that the office would be able to process the change of address in time for the election.

Just to be sure, though--and because I hadn't heard back from them--on Election Day I called the office to see if they had received the card I'd sent in. The person I spoke to said I was on the precinct roll. So I went to vote that morning.

I got to the polling site. I was indeed listed in the rolls . . . but at my old address. No problem, I was told: go ahead and vote, and just fill out a new voter registration card. I wasn't asked to show a photo ID or proof of residency or submit to a retina scan or anything. (Just so you know, I happen to agree with those who argue that voter registration requirements be as minimal as possible.)

Maybe my very-uncommon surname might have helped me on Tuesday. But I doubt that I would have been allowed to vote, because of my particular situation, in some states with new voter-registration laws, weird surname or no.

At any rate, I went to the (new-to-me) voting machines. They didn't produce a paper record of my votes, but the read-out corresponded to my selections. My votes didn't exactly help decide any races; my candidates' chances of being elected were long-ago foregone conclusions, whether for victory or defeat.

And then something happened, the thing that really prompted me to write this post. After I voted (note: not "before"), I finished filling out my voter registration card at a table. Seated next to me was a man whom most of you would have been forgiven for assuming was homeless. I know I assumed that. Even if he did have a home, I think he'd agree that it would be fair and accurate to say that he had fallen on some extremely hard times. He was filling out a registration card, too, consulting various papers, bureaucratic in appearance, that he had with him as he did so. I wasn't too nosey; I just noted what I saw. But as I noted, and as I filled out my own card, I immediately found myself thinking that I had never felt prouder to be a citizen of this country--both that this man felt himself enough a citizen to vote, too, and that in this county, at least, that feeling was honored and respected.

Oh: I'm back, by the way. What did I miss?