Election Day Adventures with Twink

Yesterday, it seems like we were all talking about the election all day. I was anxious to get home and start watching the returns come in. What I didn't count on yesterday was having to give a lesson on the electoral college.

Twink was having a hard time understanding the process. Trying to explain that wasn't even the best part though. The best part was trying to get her to understand why the votes from Alaska and Hawaii probably wouldn't matter. You see, she does not understand time zones.

No, I'm not kidding.

In fact, this is a quote from her yesterday:

"What time zone are we in? Eastern?"

We are in Arizona. And it's not like she just moved here last week.

So I Googled time zones, and I found this map. I sent her the link on IM.

Hawaii Alaska Pacific Mountain Central Eastern

8:56am 9:56 am 10:56 am 11:56 am 12:56 pm 1:56 pm

Underneath the map, it shows you the current time in each time zone. Even though I can't get them to line up straight on the blog, they were straight on the website. From this, you could see that California is an hour behind us, Alaska is an hour behind California, and Hawaii is an hour behind Alaska.

However, she kept reading online about what time the polls were closing in each state, and even with the information above, was unable to translate that if the polls closed at 7pm Eastern Time, that translated to 5pm our time. Or, if the polls weren't closing until 9pm in Alaska (because those 3 votes will matter), that was 11pm our time.

It was about this time that Supervisor asked Twink why she even cared about any of this, since she didn't register to vote and therefore did not vote.

"Oh, I just want to know who's gonna be president for the next two years!"

I think that may have been where my head hit the desk. My bangs cover the bruise on my forehead nicely.

Congratulations, President-Elect Obama. I was proud of our country today. Well, except for Twink. But at least she wasn't allowed to vote. And the people all said, "Amen."