I voted in Old Orchard Beach today right after I got out of work, and I can report that everything so far is running smoothly (not surprising for a small Maine town I suppose).  There is a vote on school consolidation with neighboring towns this year so turn out is expected to be high.  I've never voted outside of Maine so I don't really have a comparison, but I don't think I would enjoy voting as much anywhere else. It is polite, orderly and slightly antiquated.  We still make our marks using ink.

Although I cannot see Canada from my house, I have been assured by local authorities that our best effort is being put forth to keep the Canadians from crossing the border and toppling our government by committing their voter fraud on us.  For my part, I will use the GoogleMaps' satellite function to keep an eye on France (the  Territorial Collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon:  fishing post or covert staging ground for voter fraud?) and Iceland (Viking voter fraud).

And as we are celebrating Democracy with a big "D" today, I'd like to share one of my favorite essays on Democracy from E.B. White.  You can find it in "Wild Flag," a collection of his New Yorker editorials before and during the formation of the U.N.:

July 3, 1944

We received a letter from the Writer's War Board the other day asking for a statement on 'The Meaning of Democracy.' It presumably is our duty to comply with such a request, and it is certainly our pleasure.

Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don't in Don't Shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere. Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasn't been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad. It's the mustard on the hot dog and the cream in the rationed coffee. Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of the morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is.