This election night finds me sitting at a plastic folding table that’s arranged among a series of plastic folding tables that separates the interested parties from the appointed and paid election personnel of Brazos County, Texas.
I’m here to enter in the data that comes in and disperse it via this laptop computer back to Waco and on to the folks of Central Texas and the Brazos Valley. Brazos County happens to be one of the few larger entities that won’t upload their results to a website. It’s all printed on paper for us to decipher. But that’s another story for another time.
In what seems like another life, I used to come here on election night and helped put on a television spectacle for the evening and late news viewers. Just over there in the corner was where we’d broadcast live as the results came in. Back then, the rows of chairs would be full of candidates and their families eagerly awaiting the returns. These days, they’re elsewhere staring at their iPads and phones awaiting people like me to relay the tally.
Behind me and to the right are a few Libertarians. They brought cookies and sodas. They even decorated their table with balloons and bunting. All six of them. They’re a happy bunch even if they’re not a big group.
Democracy in action may be a fine thing, even in small numbers.
Just two precincts are left to count now. The MSC and Fellowship Freewill Baptist Church.
The MSC is the Memorial Student Center at Texas A&M University. We assume that will be a big box to count, since that’s where the campus residents vote.
Gotta go enter some numbers in. Happy Election Day.
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Charlie Haldeman 