Hanging Out in D.C.

Political geek that I am, I enjoyed watching the president's State of the Union speech tonight and was reminded of the very first time I voted in a presidential election. It was 1984, and since I was doing a college internship in Washington, D.C., I cast an absentee ballot from my home state of Massachusetts.

The ballot came with a thin sheet of styrofoam that was meant to be placed under the ballot so that when I punched holes with a pin to indicate my selections, they'd be more likely to go all the way through the paper.

At that point, the idea of a hanging chad hadn't yet entered the nation's consciousness. In retrospect, I hope my votes counted!