I wasn’t able to pick up my mail last week; my local post office branch was closed with no power. Fortunately when I stopped by there on Monday this week, my voter registration card had arrived — right down to the wire!

Along with it, I received a “Voter Report Card” from the League of Conservation Voters. Although I definitely *have* voted in all general elections for the past twenty years (just not here in NYC), I still found myself immediately feeling self-conscious, standing there in the post office with this indicting report.

I quickly turned the card over — faces of smiling children. Much better. 

At my local polling location, a senior center, I waited in line for 45 minutes for the scanner, and like the mayor, I can’t believe this is the solution in place here. Two of the scanners were down, leaving a long line of mostly friendly, patient people. There was one guy, though, an old fellow who yelled out “C’mon hurry it up people! Is this the United States or is it Hungary?!” The people around him calmed him down.

After returning to NYC Sunday evening, I expected to find everyone talking about the recent storm. Instead, in my interactions in shops and overheard conversations on the street, I found people fully focused on the election. In every local retail location I visited, the cashier urged customers to vote on Tuesday. Granted, my sample set was small (four). But still .. this was striking. And I was impressed by the eloquence of the young (maybe 20) woman holding forth on her phone, walking down the street, gesturing and shaking her stocking-cap-covered head as she talked: “No — the Affordable Care Act is something different entirely.”