She voted. She braved dogs and chickens to do it .

I hope newcomers to Buffalo County have an easier time voting this fall than my niece Molly Garner did in Saline Township, Michigan. She and her husband Andre moved to that township outside of Ann Arbor in July.

Early this week, Molly showed up at the Pittsfield Township Administrative Building to vote early, but when she presented her driver's license, the clerk, whom I'll call Bev, looked at her, puzzled

"It says here you live on Windmill Way," Bev said.

"No. I live on Mill Lane," Molly said.

"Hmm," Bev said.

Molly said, "I registered to vote when I got my Michigan driver's license, so I don't know why there would be a problem."

She paused. She realized she did know why. She and Andre live in a brand new neighborhood, and often, when a computer doesn't recognize their address, it will auto-correct to a different street.

Even Siri gets it wrong. The town is pronounced "Celine," as in singer Celine Dion, so when Molly asks Siri for directions, which she's done frequently in her first few months in Saline, Siri launches into "My Heart will Go On."

Molly stood there waiting for a response from Bev. Finally Bev sent her down the hall to file a change of address at the clerk's office.

When Molly got to the clerk's window, she was told she lived in Pittsfield Township, not Saline Township.

"I do?" Molly asked.

"Yes," the clerk said.

But wait. Five minutes later, the apologetic, red-faced clerk told Molly she doesn't live in Pittsfield Township, but in Saline. Saline Township, to be exact,

"Good," Molly said.

She was also told that she didn't live on Windmill Way, but Mill Lane, Molly shrugged. She knew that. In fact, she found it humorous that the computer entered Windmill Way when there was no such street.

She thought to herself, "I live on boring old Mill Lane, so I do live where I thought I lived when I entered this building: Saline."

But wait. The clerk told her she couldn't change her address in Pittsfield. She had to go to the Saline Township Clerk's office to do that. "But you can vote there at the same time," the clerk said. "It's just 17 minutes away."

The clerk wrote an address and phone number on a Post-it note. Molly thanked her, walked back to her car and headed out of town - way, way out of town, past farms and cows and election signs.

When she got to the address on the Post-It note, it wasn't a municipal building. It was a farmhouse. "I'm thinking, 'This can't be right,'" she said.

She decided to ask Siri for the address, but when she did, Siri began playing "My Heart Will Go On."

Molly called the phone number on the note. When someone answered, Molly asked if it were the Saline clerk's office.

"It's the Saline TOWNSHIP's Clerk's office," the voice said.

"What is your address?" Molly asked.

"Why do you ask?"

Molly sighed. She explained the Mill Lane vs. Windmill Lane confusion and feared this was confusion, too. But the clerk said, "You have the right address. The clerk's office is in my house because it's a part-time job. Can you come on by?"

"Yes," Molly said.

"Are you afraid of dogs?"

"No."

It was a house, all right. A farmhouse. When Molly arrived, she pulled into a farm lane, complete with chickens, a barn and three dogs that raced up to her car.

A barefoot woman came out and invited Molly in. She checked Molly's ID and had her fill out a change of address form.

Then she gave her an absentee ballot. She explained that Molly could fill out the ballot at home and mail it in (postage paid); or she could fill it out in the car and leave it in the mailbox out by the road at the end of the driveway.

Molly filled it out in the car, but she took it home to mail it. Leaving it in that rural mailbox seemed so - uh, "unofficial," she said.

"I never got an 'I voted' sticker, but I got a dog's nose in my crotch," she said.

All was not lost. As she drove home, she stopped at a neighboring farm and bought a $3 carton of free-range eggs.