After my cousin Roseerin and I voted, we came home and prepared for the onslaught of trick-or-treaters. The pumpkins were set, the VOTE pumpkin sat next to my 49 pound portrait of the six presidential candidates.

I wore my winter suit and sat with a vat of chocolate eyeballs and my laptop, reading  Poe, the Brothers Grimm, John Christian Anderson, and others.

As almost everyone knows, I offer the kids a piece of candy of their choice, then ask them “If you could vote next Tuesday, who would you vote for?” This scares many so sufficiently that “no answer” is usually second place, but usually to “Mommy” or “Happy Halloween."  

But this year there was a definite pattern to the responses that I haven’t seen in all the years I have conducted this poll.

My first visitor at 6:30 p.m. proudly said “Obama," but her brother said nothing. For the next two hours, trick-or-treaters of all ages came in clumps, so I only needed to explain the procedure to the first few in a bunch. After an hour we had 24 voters, then after another hour, 71.  But there were no voters after 8 p.m., so I closed the polls at 8:40 p.m. 

Obama dominated the election with 40 of 71 votes cast, or 56 percent. Second place was “not a word” or silence, with seven votes, or under 10%. Third was Mitt Romney with six votes, percent.  Fourth was “I don’t know” with four votes, or 5.6 percent. Following the two votes for “You!” was one vote each for Jill Stein, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, chocolate, hi!, “not me," fireman, undecided voter, Mickey Mouse, trick or treat, mommy, and Santa. 

Santa (NV) and Jill Stein (Mass.) are legitimate candidates this year. So were Rocky Anderson (Wisc.), Gary Johnson (Ariz.) and Virgil Good (way soth’n Virginni), but none of these received a vote, although someone recognized Virgil Good on my pumpkin.  

I was glad to see the green candidate get 1.5 percent of the vote, but most people in Greenbelt will be relieved to see that our youth are following the popular trend across the nation to be vastly for President Obama. I hope it sets a national trend for Tuesday.