Swans

Town Board meeting last night.  I closed up the library at 7 and got over there about 10 minutes after it had begun.  I attended this meeting because they would sign my check for working the election.  Not a princely sum but if I picked it up at the meeting it would save the town the cost of an envelope and postage.  Plus I saw on the agenda that the Road Weight Ordinance would be formalized in a special town meeting immediately before the regular meeting and the board would talk about more security for the building.   It was after the meeting when I was told about a minor glitch in the recent election.  In my state dead people can't vote.  That would seem a self-evident statement.   The morning after the election I had been told one of my neighbors died.  What I didn't realize is he probably had died before the election and not found until after the election.  Technically their absentee ballot shouldn't have been opened and counted.  Of course there was no way for us to know he was already dead when we did that.  On further consideration though I'm not sure if his ballot's status isn't a grey area.   As the County Clerk pointed out in the training, when a person mails their absentee ballot back or votes early in-person, the ballot is treated as being cast.  Even if we haven't received their ballot in the mail, that person can't come in on election day and vote nor can they ask for their unopened ballot back.   I know my neighbor voted early in-person a week before the election so that ballot was already cast, just not yet counted.   Besides, barring a plague or asteroid hit, the number of votes that might be caught in this limbo isn't going to effect the outcome of an election.  I'll smack anyone up side the head that dares to chastise the town on this one.  (Guess I'm getting tired of election nit-picking.)