Took the kids with me to vote today. G. was very interested in the actual process of voting -- ballots, etc., and K. kept asking me questions about the electoral college, which made me realize how cursory was my knowledge of how everything works. I got to think about it today, and I realized how much I wished my parents had taken me with them when they voted, just to let me see how it was done. Because I'd only heard about it in school, it was a great mystery to me -- the mechanics of it, I mean. How are you supposed to punch your ballots? What if you screw up? Yadda yadda. The kids weren't too keen on watching all the election coverage tonight, though. Probably they got tired of me complaining about how all the networks were trying to call various races when only 1 or 3% of precincts in that state had reported. All I can figure is that numbers are meaningless to many people, and a lot of them work in television.

Got a kick out of the fact that the five year olds on our street who go to school and had mock elections in their classrooms apparently voted for Kerry when their parents are ardent Bush supporters. Maybe if we gave five year olds the vote we'd all be better off. Certainly the enforcement of the "no hitting" and "share what you have" rules would be an improvement...