the clerk took the actual results in to AA at 11pm. We (floor and AVCB) were both done with counting and closing out the elections by 10, but it took another hour to get the township hall reset from the election. We got cocky in AV, and started a bit later than originally scheduled, and then one of the experienced teams got off. And then they did it again. sigh. (both early in the process, so it didn't take as long as it sometimes can to reconcile, but we still lost 45 minutes to tracking errors.) And the clerk brought us another 100 ballots over the course of the day, including 2 that were dropped in the box at 7:58pm. When the average processing rate is 100/hour, you can see why we ran a bit over. But we were done running the final tally tapes at 8:45 (and some of that time was waiting for the tabulator to send the preliminary results to the county -- with 120 tabulators all trying to send results at the same time it can take a while to get through...).

Only made two "rookie" mistakes while closing up/sealing election stuff, and they were both procedural. There's a place on the poll book where the chair is supposed to write the number of voters processed, which I missed until DN mentioned it. And we forgot to write the seal numbers from the interior bags in the poll book before we sealed the ballot container, so we had to cut the seal and do that, then change the seal and tag on the ballot container. (I haven't chaired an election since 2014, and I got this one dumped on me -- as the clerk says "she works for me, she can't say no".)

Yesterday, I took the day off -- I worked 11 days straight on elections. I did wash the dirty dishes I'd made when I made stuff for the potluck, and a couple of loads of laundry. Then I went up to Meridian to get the annual tuneup on the tenor sax, and to buy a new mouthpiece for the bari -- one of the ones in the case took a dive last week and broke. Meridian actually has it in stock, and I'd prefer to buy local than order online. So the tenor is good for another year. I may not be playing it in the fall, but at least it's ready.

I needed my d$#n cell phone to log into my google mail account this morning. All of a sudden, google decided that it didn't recognise my desktop computer (that I set my google account up on years ago), and insisted that I confirm with my cell phone. Which is a) in the other room because b) cell connection sucks out here. It took four tries to get the notification through, FFS. grumble. stupid security theater.

Also in security theater, the new paperwork for municipal employment requires either a passport or drivers' license + birth certificate. The feds now require election inspectors to be actual employees of the municipality in which the election is held, rather than contract employees as in prior years. So the township employee rolls just quadrupled. I gave the clerk a new file, so she can submit me as a D or an R depending upon which she needs more. The only thing that affiliation affects is a little letter on my assignment at elections, and who I can be paired with for some tasks. She's not been using me for elections because she's gotten so many new Ds moving into the township, but she needs Rs, and asked if I'd be willing to change that flag -- she'd much rather have me than some half-trained hard-core R from elsewhere in the county, which is what she's gotten the last few times she's asked the county for one. Especially for the Absentee Voter Board, which gets locked in a room for 10 hours. (The county acts as a clearing house for election inspectors if a municipality can't fill its balance with people from its files.)

In less muttery news, music making continues. Still flailing at the bouncy bits in Britten's Theme and Fugue, but I'll get it -- I've got the notes, now I just need to speed it up and get it with other stuff going on around me. I won't get all of the runs without getting a new horn, so I'll have to fake those.

Weather continues to be January - hovering around freezing, with occasional precipitation.