Thank you, voters of Camden, Rockport and Islesboro, for participating in this lively election season. Thank you for welcoming me at your doors. Your stories, ideas and concerns inspired me, and I will continue to work hard to advocate for our community.

Congratulations to Owen Casas, our next state representative. I wish him well, and look forward to his work in Augusta.

Thank you, too, to our town clerks – Janet Anderson, Linda Greenlaw and Katrina Oakes – and their incredible staff and volunteers. Making an election season with record turnout run smoothly is no easy task.

Thanks to all of you who turned out to vote this week and offered hugs, handshakes and high fives on your way into the polls. Thanks to the women dressed in suffragette white, to the young people casting ballots for the first time, and to the families who crowded into the voting booth together to share this historic moment. We didn't make the kind of history we expected this week, but we'll keep working on it. Together.

Kathleen Meil lives in Rockport