On election night parties.
Election night indeed. When informed that the Ambassador would be throwing an election night party at his house from 10:30 at night to 3:00 in the morning, I cheerfully told the CLO exactly what I thought of that idea.
Boy was I wrong.
My “job” during the party was to explain the electoral college. I had a blast explaining to Sierra Leoneans, Brits, Kiwis, and yes, even Americans, exactly how the votes for president were counted.
All this to say, the party was a lot of fun, and exactly what I needed to keep my spirits up while my husband was traveling. The Hatch act forbids government employees partisan activities while on duty, which meant that no matter how I felt about the outcome (and you all know I felt strongly), I had to stay netural at the party.
I had a great time schmoozing, chatting about the candidates, and explaining that yes, it’s a ridiculous confusing system that occasionaly results in counterintuitive results. But it’s our ridiculous confusing system.
And somehow, it works.
Love it – I did the same thing here, though thankfully we wrapped before 8 PM. It’s fun, isn’t it?
We did one too — 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. It was brutal and believe me, I whined about it in advance. But in the end it was super fun and the reaction to the results is something I’ll never forget.