November Election Day at the Town Hall

5:40 a.m.

The town hall sits at the crossroads, its front door propped open with a cinder block, and the first poll worker is already inside. It is the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, and the radiators tick as the room takes the warmth. The parking lot holds a single truck, its windshield frosted solid. The ballot box comes up from the boiler room, and the folding tables go into a row down the center of the main room, each one fitted with a cardboard screen. The coffee maker on the shelf in the back corner drips and steams. The chairs for the poll workers stand stacked in the hall, one on another, against the wall. The sky to the east is turning from black to a flat, cold gray.

6:00 a.m.

The doors open, and the line moves. The man who runs the feed store is first; he signs the book with the pen tied to the table by a string, folds his ballot, and feeds it into the box without asking a question. Behind him the line runs down the hall, past the town clerk's window, and out onto the porch, where it bends at the railing. The woman who drives the school bus comes in still wearing her gloves. The poll workers mark each name off in the register. Somebody pours a second pot of coffee, and the smell of it carries the length of the hall. The heater under the window ticks on as the sun comes up over the tree line, low and pale through the frost on the glass. The number on the slate beside the door is one.

7:35 a.m.

The gravel in the lot ticks under tires as the trucks turn in. Men come from the dairy barns with muck on their boots, and the poll workers hand them folded ballots without a word. Children sit on the floor in the corner with coloring books from the library table. The line moves at the pace of a walk, not a wait. A car idles at the far end of the lot with its headlights on and its exhaust hanging in the cold air. The poll worker at the door keeps the cinder block in place even though the air coming through is raw. The school bus goes past on the county road, and the morning's count goes up on the slate.

10:10 a.m.

The hall goes quiet. The poll workers sit in the half-circle of chairs, one reading a paperback, one doing a crossword in pencil. The coffee maker clicks off. A retired farmer fills out his ballot standing at the porch railing in the sun, in no hurry to leave, the paper braced against the rail. Light falls in long yellow slabs across the wooden floor, and dust hangs in the slabs. Through the window the road is empty in both directions. The only sound is the click of the slate pencil when the worker by the door updates the number. The heater cycles off, and the room is silent.

12:40 p.m.

The noon traffic comes in ones and twos, men in clean shirts who have done the morning chores first. The poll workers trade off for lunch, one at a time, at the table in the back room. The noon sun stands directly over the building, and the shadow of the hall lies straight out from its base. Sandwiches appear on paper plates, and the coffee pot is refilled. The line at the registration table is short; nobody waits. The voting booths stand empty for minutes at a time, the cardboard screens tilted. The number on the slate holds steady for a long stretch, then goes up by one.

3:15 p.m.

The school bus stops at the corner, and the afternoon rush begins. Parents walk up with children in backpacks; a teenager walks up from the bus stop and signs in before the bus has pulled away. The light through the tall windows is turning amber and lying across the floor in long shapes that touch the legs of the voting booths. The slate number climbs by ones. The parking lot fills again, engines left running, headlights on, exhaust hanging in the yard. The cardboard screens throw small shadows in the low sun. Someone refills the coffee pot, and the water runs and steams.

5:50 p.m.

The line is out the door at supper hour, quiet the way country lines are quiet. People stand on the porch with their coats on, breath showing in the porch light. A woman in nurse's scrubs, a man in a trucker's jacket, a kid in a letter jacket who signs his own name in the book. The workers move faster now, marking, folding, directing. The coffee pot sits nearly empty for the third time. The light from the hall throws squares of yellow across the porch boards, and the line stands in them. The sky behind the trees is deep November blue and cold.

8:47 p.m.

The lot empties out one headlight at a time. The last voter leaves, and the number on the slate is final. The poll workers seal the ballot box with tape from the kitchen drawer and carry it to the table for the count. The tally sheets are ruled out in pencil, the numbers straight and even. The folding tables come down, the cardboard screens stack in the corner, and the chairs return to their stack in the hall. The lights go out one by one, the hall, the porch, the lot. The door is pulled to and latched. The flag above the door hangs flat in the windless dark.