In a world where the only certain things are death, taxes and the futility of the Chicago Cubs, humans address the primordial need for continuity in ritual. Whether defined by religion, family tradition or the singing of the national anthem before the Cubs lose, ritual is the glue of cultural endurance.

As a rather solitary sort whose family is dispersed and wholly unsentimental, I�m not much of a partaker of ritual. I don�t believe in organized religion, and I don�t find holidays meaningful. As a Southern Californian, I find no reason to celebrate the change of seasons because there aren�t any. Even my sporting loyalties are tenuous, thanks to commercialism, free agency and a college degree from a Division III school where sports as an extracurricular activity fell just below driving to Mt. Baldy to pack a cooler full of snow.

But there is one ritual I practice with relish and commitment. This election season is notable for, among other things, the popularity of early and absentee voting. But not for me. My ritual is casting my ballot in person at my polling place. Only once in the nearly 30 years I have lived in my Santa Monica neighborhood have I missed exercising my franchise at the 110-year-old church half a block from my house. That year I was traveling on Election Day and had voted absentee. The whole process�voting in lonesome privacy at my dining-room table and two weeks later monitoring election results in the middle of a spring afternoon in Australia�made me feel odd and bereft.

I want, I need, to climb the clunky wooden stairs of the church to the musty voting parlor that smells vaguely of surfboard wax and sea mist. I want to see how the handful of poll workers are biding their almost-always quiet time: reading the paper, knitting, chatting about the fires raging in the foothills where we don�t live. I want to see if, as usual, my neighbor Robert is among their number, with his signature snap-brim motoring cap and colorful attire. Usually, the poll workers are bored, and desperately seeking someone to help. Usually, they give you two I Voted stickers because they have so many they never run out, unlike the store-bought cookies somebody always brings for those of us who vote early.

Only once has my polling place been overpopulated. In 2004 it took me 40 minutes to make it to the front of the line snaking through the chapel toward its eight or 10 voting booths. Everyone was surprised at having had to wait but no one whined. Nearly everyone seemed pleased at the turnout, at the opportunity to renew acquaintances, discuss children and pets, commiserate over why that hideous pickup truck around the corner never got towed. Several young people talked about how this was their first time voting, and we regulars hoped for all our sakes that it would become a habit.

It�s a good habit, this ritual, this organized religion of community that we practice in a house of worship where the only deity on the first Tuesday (usually) of November is the concept of a free and democratic society. Say amen.

Ellen Alperstein is an essayist and editor with the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service.