By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

It’s done! We voted today … on the first day of early voting in Texas.

I am proud of myself and of my wife for tossing aside our long-held objection to early voting and casting our ballots for president/vice president and on down through the various contests.

We had thought about traveling to the Allen Event Center, a spacious venue where we could be assured of maintaining proper social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic.

Then we thought differently. We voted instead in Princeton, where the poll workers had set up an efficient procedure at First Baptist Church to guarantee social distancing and to protect us in various ways from getting infected by the COVID-19 virus.

The parking lot across the street from the polling place was full of folks, some of them candidates. We were approached by two of them, a Princeton mayoral candidate and a candidate for the Princeton school board of trustees. We walked by a table manned by Democrats who offered us a sheet showing the “Democratic slate” of candidates. No thanks, we said; we got ya covered.

We didn’t wait in line. However, my sense is that the traffic had been brisk all morning and that it would remain that way at least for the first few days of early voting.

This is a good thing for those of us who are concerned about the scare tactics being blurted by Donald Trump and his GOP minions who keep citing something called “rampant voter fraud.” In truth, there is no such thing as “rampant” fraud. It’s, um, shall we say — “fake news.”

So, our votes are now logged into the system.

We did our patriotic duty. I am a proud American today.