Or, you know. Not.

It was exciting to hear that NC was actually counting absentee and provisional ballots, and I went into the state board of elections website to see how many of us there actually were. There were 3997 overseas votes, which doesn't sound like that many, and is obviously nowhere near enough to turn the thing. I guess that'll come down to the provisional ballots.

It was cool to see real information and even cooler to find a "check the status of your absentee ballot" link.

Yeah. Shouldn't have clicked that.

The ballot I cast was a Federal Write In something or other. It included (in my case) a change of address and a request for a full state absentee ballot. Right there on the same page, in the same envelope. The ballots were sent to the United States through the embassy and, I believe, put into the US mail.

That was five weeks ago, but my address (which, awesome privacy practices, you guys. All I put in was my first & last name and the county I'm registered in, and BAM, there's my [last known] address. No offense, Jennifer Ann Tucker from my same county. I didn't mean to look up your address on the Internet.)

...Where was I? Oh, right. My address still comes up as the apartment I lived in seven years ago, and the site informs me that no absentee ballot request was received.

You know, I never once, in all these years, really truly believed my ballots were getting there, or being counted. Much less making a difference.

But it sucks to know for sure.