Sheriff Raleigh Isaacs could use some tips on how to fire up a crowd. At his election night vigil party at the Dining Room, a crowd of dozens of friends and supporters had been there for more than close to an hour and a half before the candidate showed up.

The crowd greeted Isaacs enthusiastically, but all he could say was that he had results from King’s Fork, the first precinct reporting, which he expected to win, and the margin wasn’t as large as he had hoped.

That put a little damper on things, but it picked up quickly when it became clear that he was headed for a big win.

Treasurer Ron Williams was at the Isaacs event and looked like he had gotten plenty of sun on Election Day. Williams served as a poll worker for Isaacs at John Yeates Middle School. He said it was his first time pulling such duty in about 20 years.

My favorite line on election night came, oddly enough, from my 16-year-old son, Adam. We were watching returns at home and both had a good laugh when we saw the name of the fella running for treasurer, I think, of Portsmouth, Billy Butts III.

&uot;Just think,&uot; Adam said. &uot;There’s two more of them out there somewhere.&uot;

I had a little fun on my own. I cast my ballot at the Eclipse-Crittenden-Hobson Ruritan House at about 7:30 a.m. I don’t like the electronic voting machines. I’ve read too much about the evil Diebold Corporation that makes them and it’s owner, who donated about $100,000 to the Bush Campaign, declare he was going to do everything in his power to get President Bush elected. Many people believe, and some evidence suggests, that this included rigging programming on machines so they change votes or register additional votes for a particular candidate – in this case, the Republican candidate.

I just don’t like the fact that there’s no paper record of our ballots and no way to conduct a recount except by the tape produced by the machine, which, of course, could be manipulated by programming,

Anyway, when I left the booth I asked the poll worker handing out the &uot;I voted&uot; stickers if he had a paper record of my vote. He said no.

&uot;Well how can I be sure that machines not going to change my vote?&uot; I asked accusingly.

&uot;There’s no way the vote can be changed,&uot; he said.

I wonder…