This week, I had the rare privilege of seeing two profoundly magical moments in two days.
The first was Sunday night, after I turned out the lights and climbed into bed. I lay down, with my face toward the window, and saw two brilliant stars through the trees. I leaned forward to get a better look and realized that instead of stars, I was seeing the moon reflected in the ice on the branches of a tree. Then I noticed that every branch of every tree within my view had dozens of tiny moons tracing its curves. It was a starkly beautiful display that made all those human attempts at tree-lighting seem as awkward and graceless as a day-old colt in the mud.
Then at 10 am yesterday, in a small gathering in Room 11 of the State House, Vermont's Electors officially cast their ballots for President and Vice President of the United States.
Vermont may be a little state, but even with only 3 electors, we provided one of the more diverse electoral college contingents in the country: 33.3% male, 66% female, 33.3% African American, 33.3% lesbian, and 33.3% State Senator all in one tidy little bundle!
Photographic goodness below the fold...
The crowd was small (Orange County was seriously over-represented: fielding 7 people out of roughly 20), but the energy was large - you could feel the excitement as the proceedings began with the swearing in of the electors.
(Electors, Standing: Claire Ayer, Euan Bear, Kevin Christie)
They had to take 2 oaths of office, and elect members for 3 different positions (which was pretty amusing to watch, since there were exactly as many people as positions).
Once the formalities were out of the way, the electors got down to business. There were two slips of blue paper for each elector. One had the name of the Presidential candidate and a check box; the other had the name of the Vice Presidential candidate and a check box. They didn't seem to need a whole lot of time to figure out which candidate to choose!
Then came the most time-consuming part of the event. Each elector had to sign 6 copies of the State of Vermont Certificate of Vote form. I never needed to know whether or not the word "sextuplicate" existed before this. (It does.)
Now the forms will be sent to separate places to ensure that if one copy is lost, there are others from which the data can be recovered.
The most notable recipient will be the President of the US Senate, VP Dick Cheney, who will officially count the Electoral College vote on January 6. Let's hope he's a whole lot better at counting than he is at hunting birds whose wings have been clipped. At the very least, he doesn't need a firearm for counting, so all faces in the room should be safe, unless he has a trick abacus or something...
So there you have it. Vermont quietly participated in the historic victory of the first African-American President of the United States: a brilliant spot of sunlight on a gray December morning. We were the first state to be declared for Obama, and now we've sealed the deal.
Congratulations to the Electors on their role in making history!