The Night the Polls Closed (and the Sky Opened)

 **The Night the Polls Closed (and the Sky Opened)**

The precinct volunteers in Millbrook, Ohio, figured the long line at 6:58 PM was just procrastinators. Then they noticed the voters were nine feet tall, faintly glowing, and holding their ballots upside down.

By 7:30, an enormous silver disc was hovering over the county courthouse, humming the national anthem slightly off-key. A voice that sounded like a blender and a choir arguing announced that the Zorvathi Collective had "reviewed Earth's democratic process with great interest" and would be "participating."

To everyone's surprise, they followed the rules almost perfectly. Each alien showed valid ID, which turned out to be a hologram of its own face with a barcode. They waited patiently in line, and one helped an elderly man find his reading glasses. Their only violation was the bake sale table. Nobody was sure whether the aliens bought all 400 brownies or absorbed them.

Trouble started at the count. Every Zorvathi ballot was a write-in for the same candidate: "THE ONE WHO SAID HELLO." After hours of debate, officials traced it to Doreen Pruitt, 64, a poll worker who'd simply waved and said "Hi, hon" to the first alien through the door. It was apparently the first friendly greeting the Collective had received in 3,000 years of visiting planets.

Doreen won the county commissioner race by 11,000 votes. In her victory speech, she promised to fix the potholes on Route 9 and to "keep being nice to folks, wherever they're from."

The disc left at dawn, playing the anthem again, this time in tune. Experts still can't agree whether the election was stolen. Most of Millbrook agrees it was the best turnout they've ever had.