Vale folded her voting paper along the line the clerk showed her and put it into the box.
No one looked over her shoulder. No one treated her vote as forgiveness for the old administration. The clerk found her name, marked that she had voted and called the next person forward.
Outside, the queue moved past the school wall into the cold morning sun.
It was the five hundred and eighth day, the last of the announced polling turns. People came before work, after work and in the paid intervals arranged for service crews who could not all leave together. The ward rolls were separate from the working bodies’ delegate records. The clerks knew which choice each person was there to make.
Vale stepped aside to let a man with a sleeping child reach the entrance.
Asa waited near the gate, carrying her own folded copy of the food body’s candidate list. Her name was on it. She had accepted nomination after the cooks’ meeting rather than being appointed because she had spoken loudly at the charter sitting.
“Nervous?” Vale asked.
“Yes.”
