I worked a West Anchorage polling place as an election worker on Tuesday, and two things stand out from this time around. First, the lesson of the city election in April was not lost on the state election for August. At training, supervisors made it clear: There will be enough ballots. Don't worry about running out of ballots. You'll have more ballots than you need.

We had plenty.

Second, an antidote to the low turnout came with the spirit of one woman who walked out of the booth and up to the Accuvote machine. As often happens if the secrecy sleeve gets in the way or the machine is just cranky, her ballot hung up for a moment before she pulled back on the sleeve and her votes zipped home.

We both heard the card fall into the box.

"It counts," I told her.

"It better," she said.

-- Frank Gerjevic