Dublin, New Hampshire, is my part-time home here in the U.S.A. — I spend about 6 weeks out of every year here, and have for almost 10 years. Today I got to see Dublin go to vote.

Dublin Town Hall is the polling place for Dublin citizens: it’s a grand old building, constructed in 1881. It’s in the National Register of Historic Places. If you walk along the driveway on the eastern side, you go down the hill and around to the back, which is where the poll is located.

Section 659 of the New Hampshire Election Law says, in part:

No person who is a candidate for office or who is representing or working for a candidate shall distribute any campaign materials or perform any electioneering activities or any activity which affects the safety, welfare and rights of voters within a corridor 10 feet wide and extending a distance from the entrance door of the building as determined by the moderator where the election is being held.

As a result, you see a large gaggle of electioneers gathered across the driveway from the door to the poll. You can see it’s really quite close, nonetheless.

My favourite part of the trip across the road was the realization that by looking in the small windows along the bottom of the Town Hall, you could, in theory, see right into the election curtains. I fully suspect this to become the subject of a Supreme Court battle.

My interview with Matt Rainnie will air on CBC Prince Edward Island’s Mainstreet program this afternoon after the news around 4:05 p.m. Atlantic. You can listen live; I’ll snarf a recording and post here later.

From Budget Travel magazine comes a pointer to Megabus, which appears to do for buses what EasyJet does for air travel: “The sooner you reserve the lower the price.” The magazine quotes fares as low as $3 for the London to Glasgow run.

I also grabbed some screen shots of news websites this Election Day morning. For posterity.

Here are some photos of what’s on television here in New Hampshire on the morning of Election Day. Say what you will about Kerry, Bush, the battleground, whatever: this is going to be a day tailor made for political television junkies.

Remember the [The] Home Depot logo thing? Well, look at the difference between the logos for Bravo in the U.S. (left) and Bravo in Canada (right):

Why do we exclaim in Canada, but not in the U.S.?

Bravo! (only here in the U.S.) is airing a marathon of The West Wing today, showing episodes back-to-back all night long. After an hour of CNN, MSNBC and FoxNews, I’m finding the dramatic intrigue of fictional presidential politics far more compelling than the endless arithmetic of the real thing.

I’m watching Anderson Cooper on CNN. When I last checked in, Cooper was the only one who knew the identity of The Mole, which should give him a leg up and predicting the outcome of the election, I guess.

He’s interviewing Ralph Nader, and is taking the same tack that Nader must have endured 10,000 times this election: “you still have blood on your hands from 2000, what are you running if you have no chance of winning?”

I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000: I think he’s a brilliant, impassioned man, and I applaud him for running, fueled by conviction, this time around. I wish interviewers could set the “you have no chance so why bother?” line of questioning aside. Not only for Nader, but for all candidates. It’s boring, it doesn’t teach us anything, and it demeans democracy.

I didn’t vote for Nader this time around. Not because I don’t continue to believe in his message, but because, even though, as a New York elector, I’m not voting in a “swing state,” I couldn’t conscience even the hint of blood on my hands should Bush win.

Of course that’s the same logic that meant I didn’t vote Green in the Canadian election in June, even though I believed in their platform ahead of any other.

Perhaps the next time I vote for someone, I’ll do it with conviction and passion, and not as part of a collective voodoo chess game.

Tomorrow is Election Day here. If you look at this webcam you can see where I’ll be. The white building on the right is Dublin Town Hall and that’s where residents of this village are casting their ballots, so I will have a front-row seat on the proceedings (I’m going to go across the road with some of my colleagues as they go to vote so I can see how it’s done here…).

Matt Rainnie and I are taping a piece for Mainstreet tomorrow afternoon that should air on tomorrow’s show (listen live from here).

I’ll be watching the returns with Real Live Americans tomorrow night.

Should all be over by, what, ten or elevn o’clock…

I haven’t felt this way for a long time, but there’s a drama on the CBC that I really, really enjoyed. And that I’m quite sad I won’t see the second part of (unless, by some miracle, my hotel in New Hampshire carries the CBC).