In honor of the day's event: A thread about the craziest election I ever covered. It was about wind turbines and it was absolutely bonkers.

This was 7 yrs ago, in Fairhaven, Mass., An absolutely gorgeous town south of Cape Cod. The election was held on April Fools Day, and I promise that date cannot even begin to describe how batty things got.

It's 2013. I'm a cub reporter on the environment beat. The year before the election the town had put up two wind turbines at the wastewater treatment plant.

The turbines were legitimately close to peoples' homes (within 1.5 miles). You could hear them in the neighborhoods, like an airplane constantly circling overhead. It could be annoying.

There were obviously complaints about that--a nearby town on Cape Cod had recently put up wind turbines too close to peoples' homes that the state found violated noise standards at night.

But there were also fears (that Trump now echoes) about infrasound quieter than people can hear making them sick, causing cancer, etc.

The town selectmen put the turbines up. But the Board of Health had the power to shut them down. All three members of the board were pro-turbine. The chair was up for reelection against an anti-turbine challenger.

It was clear the race was going to be tight because in the weeks leading up to the election, things got nutty. One example:

A man complained to the BOH about he turbines and wrote that the chair "deserves all that will rain down upon him." Complaint is reported, police say it's not a real threat. But the Selectmen write on town letterhead to the man's employer saying he's threatening officials

Anyways. We get to April Fools Day, and Fairhaven has a tradition of people going to the town clerk's office to watch as she gets the vote tallies from each precinct and reads them out.

She lets me stand behind the counter so more people can crowd into the office and hear the results. Anti turbine candidate wins by just three votes. She swears him in immediately.

Literally *minutes* later, while people are still congratulating the challenger, the clerk finds an extra envelope of ballots that the voting machines didn't count.

Someone had put them in a separate envelope to be hand counted, but the message hadn't gotten to the clerk until after she swore the challenger in.

There are 48 ballots, and they ever-so-slightly tip the balance. Now incumbent is winning by 1 vote. A single vote! Anti-turbine people are livid. They rightly want to know where these extra ballots came from.

Five days later, the explanation only brings more confusion. There was a mix-up between hand-count ballots and write-in ballots. 45 of the 48 ballots had actually been counted in the Board of Health race before the Clerk got them. Only 3 hadn't been.

There is, of course, a recount. Incumbent pro-turbine candidate wins, but only after throwing out a couple of ballots as indecipherable. The anti-turbine candidate sues the town asking for a new election.

So we go to court and I, cub reporter just starting my second year on the beat, am eating it up. All the candidates, the town clerk, everyone is taking the stand. For local news this is as Perry Mason as it gets.

Or so I thought. The anti-turbine candidate's lawyer shows a picture on the projection screen of the town clerk's office on election night. I'm in the picture behind the counter looking at some piece of paper the pro-turbine candidate is showing me.

All of a sudden, I'm being called to the witness stand. The lawyer is alleging that if there was a plot by the pro-turbine incumbent to stuff ballots, I may have known about it because I was behind the counter. The key is the piece of paper we are looking at.

I have not been subpoenaed. I had no idea this was coming. I thought I had a good relationship with the lawyers on both sides (this is before "fake news") and I am a deer in headlights.

Stunned, I take the stand, am sworn in, and then beg the judge to to let me call my editor/lawyer before I am asked to testify.

He adjourns. The next day, the newspaper lawyer argues I shouldn't be called to the stand because there would be a chilling effect on local news. (He does not make my argument that I clearly would have reported in the newspaper any ballot-stuffing plot I was aware of.)

The judge doesn't buy it but agrees to limit the scope of questions. I take the stand.

The anti-turbine lawyer starts asking me about where I was standing in the clerk's office, trying to set the scene. The judge interrupts, he asks me what was on the paper. I say I don't remember.

Anti-turbine lawyer tries to ask followups, but the judge shuts her down. I can leave the witness stand.

Ultimately, (and obviously) the judge orders a new election. In the interim, the turbine operator agrees to turn them off at night until the state noise tests them (which he does successfully, except one night when he gets too caught up watching the Bruins and forgets).

The state tests the turbines, they pass. The court case clearly energizes the electorate. That fall, pro-turbine incumbent wins with a decisive victory of more than 200 votes. The end.

So, that's my friendly reminder that every vote truly does count--and subscribe to your (hyper) local newspaper!