Vote of confidence

Phones have stopped ringing. Ali crashed a couple of hours ago. They are out there now, consolidating ballot boxes and polling workers at the more secure sites. The concern now is that even though there wasn’t a lot of violence today – the vehicle restriction virtually removed the most deadly threat, the car bomb – tomorrow traffic will start up again and the danger level may go up. Also, there are two main reasons for attacking the polling sites: one, to cause terror and prevent people from voting and two, to actually destroy the ballots and render the count invalid. The second can still happen. We are watching very closely to make sure that the security forces stay at their posts all night. And then tomorrow, they’ll start the movement back and collect up all the ballots and tally sheets. And workers can finally go home, many after spending two nights with strangers curled up on a schoolroom floor in an unfamiliar neighborhood hoping that the cops and soldiers outside are vigilant and competent enough to face off an insurgent attack. All for a bunch of paper slips that only say either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.