We only get the opportunity once every three years to have a say over how this country is run and what values are going to infuse our laws, institutions and economy. It's worth making a special day of it.
Tomorrow, I'll be stepping behind the wonky cardboard voting booth and ticking the boxes on the ballot paper like I'm participating in a sacred ritual.
I'll put my completed ballot into the return box with all the seriousness with which the ancients used to make offerings to their favourite gods.
There's surely something similar in a sacrificial offering that tries to curry favour with the gods and casting your vote in the hope of influencing the society in which you live.
Elections are one of the founding secular rituals of modern societies.
Yet there lingers still echoes of the religious experience (which is, after all, about believing in something bigger than yourself).
You see the fervour at the party gatherings when the successful leader enters the party HQ. There's transcendent joy on the faces of party members.
The euphoria of having your team win the possible right to govern, and thus having your values, desires, and indeed faith, justified, is palpable, even on TV.
It must be a great feeling having your worldview confirmed in this way. In my case, the Greens winning an electoral majority would be a minor miracle, so I can only imagine.
I can understand, though, how National supporters, so jubilant on election night last time, must have felt let down by NZ First going with Labour.
It must be disappointing to think your values and ideologies had come out on top, only to see it slip away.
Whatever the result MMP finally delivers through post-election negotiations, I'll always enjoy the spectacle of the night itself.
I love how the party faithful, untrained in media smarts, can get a piece of screen time and say something inappropriate or obnoxious.
Then there are those party gatherings where election night is a visible disaster.
In 2014, I'll never forget images of Hone Harawira — who I've a lot of time for — sitting alone in a big hall in Kaitaia having lost Te Tai Tokerau.
It was like he was being punished by his own supporters for not delivering this time. The painfully solitary image (sought out no doubt by an on to it camera operator) spoke of the fragile bond between leader and supporters. It needs success to last.
Saturday's election will probably see a messiah-like entry by Jacinda Ardern into Labour's election night HQ.
And I know, despite not voting for her party, I'll get caught up in the occasion. Her speech will have me believing, even though I know most of what she'll say won't actually come to pass.
It's all part of the election experience. I wouldn't miss it for anything.
There's a spirit that moves through the day that I hope to maintain faith in until the day I die.
Democracy, once every three years, I'm a true believer.
