So I did a thing last night.
Those who know me well know that not only am I a news junkie, but also an election junkie. Believe it or not, that thing I did was not watching hours of election returns.
Instead, I spent the evening at the City-County Building waiting for Saline County election returns. You see, a few weeks ago a representative from the Associated Press contacted me about stringing for them on election night. My job would be to call in to AP election returns as the Saline County Clerk released them.
I had worked as an AP stringer for several elections while I was running Salina Post. But when I retired, I relinquished the stringer position because I didn't want to leave Mom alone for so many hours.
The recent contact from AP was a nice surprise and made me happy that they thought enough of my previous efforts to contact me once the position opened up again. I agreed to give it another go.
Since it had been a few years, I wasn't sure what to expect from this election night. I packed some water, a snack, my cell phone and charger, and a few other items and headed to the City-County Building. AP wanted its stringers on site before the polls closed, so things were pretty quiet when I arrived.
Pretty quiet was to be the theme for the evening. All total, there were three interested citizens, one candidate, and one media person on site in addition to me. By the end, it was just me and the few remaining County Clerk personnel. I got home after midnight.
Now I need to point out that the County Clerk and her staff were not to blame for the lateness of the final unofficial election report. Apparently a number of temp files clogged up the works, thus prohibiting the unofficial final report from being generated. Once the IT folks cleaned out the files, the report was run, and I was making my final call to AP. I also need to note that I greatly appreciated the efforts of the County Clerk and her staff.
While I was sitting, sometimes alone, waiting for the next round of results, I thought about election nights of the past and what most likely made me a election junkie.
Election nights used to be a big social event. A giant grid sign with all of the precincts and candidates listed was set up in the lobby of the first floor. That lobby area was filled with Saline Countians and media personnel. My parents used to take me to the election night events when I was young, most likely cementing my affinity for elections.
Today, I am incredibly tired. It was a long night. But, I enjoyed the night nonetheless.
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