October 5, 2022 --

Suddenly it's getting dark around 6:30 p.m. in the Northeast. That means the darkness of night is getting longer hereabouts. And the first weekend of November -- the weekend before the midterm elections, daylight savings ends, and night will fall an hour earlier, with darkness arriving earlier with every passing evening -- until right after the first day of winter, when daylight gradually starts earlier.

Winter, much more than autumn, is the season of frigid temperatures, all the talk of climate-warming, notwithstanding. But do we appreciate the geophysical fact that autumn is the true season of darkness, and the concomitant fact that people who wait to vote till after work will go to the polls in darkness?

Wouldn't it be more pleasant to go to the polls when the darkness of evening waits until 8 p.m. or later to happen, rather than 5 p.m., if not earlier?