This has been the most astounding election cycle that I have ever seen.  The Franconia Governmental Center has for many years been a satellite voting location for absentee-in-person voting. (Only a bureaucrat could have devised that name for voting that takes place before election day.)  Absentee-in-person voting is not the same as early voting which Virginia does not have.  In order to vote absentee-in-person, you must have a valid reason that will keep you from getting to the polls during the hours that they are open.

Absentee-in-person voting has always been leisurely at this satellite location—I don’t remember anyone waiting for more than a few minutes or circling the parking lot for twenty minutes trying to find a parking space.  Not this year!  In the last week of voting, people began lining up at 11:30 am for voting that would not begin until 1 pm.  Lines stretched from one end of the governmental center to the other and doubled back on themselves.  I was struck by how patient people were and how determined they were to cast their vote.  Normally, we’re a do-it-now group of people, unwilling to wait more than a few minutes for anything, yet voters waited in line for two and three hours.

I didn’t think there’d be many people left to vote by the time election day came around, but as I was wrong.  As I waited in a very long line at my polling place at an hour when turnout is usually light I thought about this historic election and reflected that whoever won would have an enormous obligation to the American people to honor their trust in democracy.

Now that the election is over, I hope that we can take that election civic mindedness and put it to use pulling together as a community and a nation.  Heaven knows, the challenges in front of us will take all our energy, courage, and determination to overcome.

On a more festive note, as the year draws to a close, I would like to wish a happy holiday season and new year to you and your families.  I hope you’ll join my staff and me for our annual open house from 1-3 pm on Saturday, January 31 in the community room of the Franconia Governmental Center.