Team building
When we arrived at the precincts (there were two in the same school gym), it was almost 6 am and several people were struggling to assemble the voting booths. The four legs that needed to go into the underside of the flat top were connected by multiple crossbars and the entire assembly appeared to have far more degrees of freedom than one could comfortably deal with. The chairman (who was supposed to be in charge and to be able to competently deal with everything) was hovering uncertainly, offering bits of tentative advice while admitting that he was probably wrong. There were maybe twenty boxes containing booths needing to be assembled. And this was just the first step. There were tabulating and voting machines to be set up, paperwork to be completed and everything was, by law, required to be shipshape and ready to receive voters by 7 am sharp. We were never going to make it...but we did!
This pretty much sums up the entire day and my entire experience being a first time poll worker at a primary election.
The whole enterprise felt perched on the edge of precarity the entire time, particularly because the chairman, who was in charge of both precincts and was supposed to be the reassurer and problem solver in chief, acted vague and uncertain about everything. In the end it turned out that he was more knowledgeable than he appeared, and other people filled in the gaps - an amazingly unflappable lady from the clerk's office and her son (also from the same office) who came out help, other pollworkers who had done this before, my friend who had read and bookmarked the training document end to end and could retrieve any needed information from it, and the rest of us that managed to stay calm enough to carry the process through step by step. A typical exchange - chairman: "Oh no, you counted 37 and the machine says 43!" Me: "6 absentee ballots were put in." Chairman with a wide grin: "Ah yes, thank you. Two heads are better than one!"
Going with two friends made some things more fun that annoying (casting rueful glances at each other, sharing snacks and tea). Having a huge picnic bag - burritos, wraps, fruit - packed by my kids helped too (one woman said, "looks like she brought all the stuff from her fridge"). Also having a 400 page book to read.
Once we had the process up and running and I was settled by the tabulator, guiding the occasional voter who came by (turnout was light since this was a primary), I had ample time throughout the morning and most of the afternoon to read practically uninterrupted with a clear conscience. I began to feel that poll working wasn't that hard, it was maybe even kind of fun. Around 4 in the afternoon, we had been there for about 10 hours, things were going smoothly. A challenger, who had been there since noon, was getting seriously bored. Every few hours, she had gone up to the machines and taken mysterious notes on a clipboard, sometimes standing in front of it and sometimes crouching in the back. When people came from the city clerk's office a couple to times to feed absentee ballots into the tabulator, she parked herself behind them and watched closely. But she evidently didn't find any irregularities. By late afternoon, she was sprawled on the floor and was heard to mutter, "I'm so bored! Give me something to challenge!" I had another cup of tea from our travel flask and estimated that in another 5 hours or so we should be all done. Things would get busier when people got off work. Polls would close at 8. Then there was some final accounting / documenting to be done. It probably wouldn't be later than nine or nine thirty.
Boy was I wrong! By 9 pm we had gotten all the numbers to match and I had reorganized the voting applications by voter number rather than ballot number (they were different because some voters "spoiled" ballots by mistake and got new ones). Time to wrap up and leave? No, we had to wait for the last batch of absentee ballots to arrive from the city clerk's office...we waited, and waited and waited. Having woken up at 4:30 in the morning to get to the precinct on time, most of us were utterly exhausted. It was hot inside the gym and some people took chairs outside the open doors. The woman who had been full of hustle and bustle in the morning and had importantly taken charge of the computer (without the slightest idea what to do with it), was now perched on a chair, her face turned away and looked ready to cry. The motherly retired lady, who had been calling us "honey" all day and bringing chairs for us to sit on, and had told us earlier that when she got home she was going straight to bed (not to sleep but to finish reading her novel), now resigned herself to reading in the gym and opened her book. I had thought earlier of asking my friends to stop at my house for dinner - didn't look like that was going to happen now. There was still a wrap apiece left in the picnic bag, should I get them out now I wondered.
Suddenly there was a commotion. The challenger woman who had been hanging out with us all day - apparently she didn't have proper credentials! She wasn't even supposed to be there, let alone take close looks at the voting machines. "I brought what they gave me," she said. She tried to make phone calls but none of them yielded anything. I felt sorry for her, poor thing. "You guys are getting paid, right? I am a volunteer", she had said earlier. "Someone else was supposed to come but they didn't show up to share my shift", she had said sadly. She seemed like a sincere person who had come to do her part for democracy and catch out wrongdoers meddling with the electoral system. She had spent her entire day being bored for nothing. "Thank you for your time", she said to the chairman in a subdued voice and left with a woebegone look on her face.
Finally, the absentee ballots! But we were far from done. The ballots had to be taken out from the tabulator and packed up with all the other things, various containers needed to be sealed, we stood around the table and signed the 20 reports that required all our signatures. The retired lady's feet were killing her, I brought her a chair. The co-chair, a young woman who hadn't said much all day, put it the last signature and left abruptly without saying goodbye to anyone (the poor girl works two jobs and had to be up early). The chairman really came into his own about this time. Oblivious of the long faces around, him he hummed cheerfully as he packed up the equipment. "Can someone get me scissors?" I handed him a pair. "I feel like a surgeon, hand me the scalpel, tra-la-laa-la" he said taking the scissors. He stuffed the power cords into a compartment in the tabulator box and shut it firmly. "I feel like I'm sewing up the patient. toodle-doo-oo" One had to admire his sang froid.
The chairman still had to go over to the other precinct and do all the signatures etc. "You should go home now, there isn't much left to do", we said to the retired lady. "No, that wouldn't be like a good team player", she demurred. The chairman was busy wrapping up the other precinct but wanted us to wait to carry things to his car. "You really should leave", we said again to the retired lady, "the two of us can manage". "Are you sure girls? Okay", she shuffled off limping. A lady from the other precinct bustled over, her long ear hoops dangling, this time to shoo us away, "Go on, go home, we can get this stuff to the car, hurry up and leave! It's been an exhausting day - I'm 72 and I'm not sure I'm doing this again". She looked cheerful, energetic and very fresh for 11:30 pm on an election night. She was so authoritative that we obeyed.
It was late, so we three decided to go sleep at one of our houses. Gathered round the table at 12:30 pm, out of tight shoes, changed and feeling refreshed (two of us in borrowed nighties), we ate the veggie wraps and fruit that had miraculously survived a wole day in a hot gym and agreed that it had been an experience to remember. That night I slept like a log, so deeply that, when I woke up 6 hours later, I felt completely rejuvenated.
When was the last time I fell into bed that exhuasted? Not recently. "You don't work very hard on a daily basis, do you?" observed my inner voice. When was the last time I had gotten together with a bunch of strangers and kindly, methodically held each other's hands through an activity that we were all feeling shaky about? Never? "Remember this," whispered my inner voice, "don't forget this feeling."
This pretty much sums up the entire day and my entire experience being a first time poll worker at a primary election.
The whole enterprise felt perched on the edge of precarity the entire time, particularly because the chairman, who was in charge of both precincts and was supposed to be the reassurer and problem solver in chief, acted vague and uncertain about everything. In the end it turned out that he was more knowledgeable than he appeared, and other people filled in the gaps - an amazingly unflappable lady from the clerk's office and her son (also from the same office) who came out help, other pollworkers who had done this before, my friend who had read and bookmarked the training document end to end and could retrieve any needed information from it, and the rest of us that managed to stay calm enough to carry the process through step by step. A typical exchange - chairman: "Oh no, you counted 37 and the machine says 43!" Me: "6 absentee ballots were put in." Chairman with a wide grin: "Ah yes, thank you. Two heads are better than one!"
Going with two friends made some things more fun that annoying (casting rueful glances at each other, sharing snacks and tea). Having a huge picnic bag - burritos, wraps, fruit - packed by my kids helped too (one woman said, "looks like she brought all the stuff from her fridge"). Also having a 400 page book to read.
Once we had the process up and running and I was settled by the tabulator, guiding the occasional voter who came by (turnout was light since this was a primary), I had ample time throughout the morning and most of the afternoon to read practically uninterrupted with a clear conscience. I began to feel that poll working wasn't that hard, it was maybe even kind of fun. Around 4 in the afternoon, we had been there for about 10 hours, things were going smoothly. A challenger, who had been there since noon, was getting seriously bored. Every few hours, she had gone up to the machines and taken mysterious notes on a clipboard, sometimes standing in front of it and sometimes crouching in the back. When people came from the city clerk's office a couple to times to feed absentee ballots into the tabulator, she parked herself behind them and watched closely. But she evidently didn't find any irregularities. By late afternoon, she was sprawled on the floor and was heard to mutter, "I'm so bored! Give me something to challenge!" I had another cup of tea from our travel flask and estimated that in another 5 hours or so we should be all done. Things would get busier when people got off work. Polls would close at 8. Then there was some final accounting / documenting to be done. It probably wouldn't be later than nine or nine thirty.
Boy was I wrong! By 9 pm we had gotten all the numbers to match and I had reorganized the voting applications by voter number rather than ballot number (they were different because some voters "spoiled" ballots by mistake and got new ones). Time to wrap up and leave? No, we had to wait for the last batch of absentee ballots to arrive from the city clerk's office...we waited, and waited and waited. Having woken up at 4:30 in the morning to get to the precinct on time, most of us were utterly exhausted. It was hot inside the gym and some people took chairs outside the open doors. The woman who had been full of hustle and bustle in the morning and had importantly taken charge of the computer (without the slightest idea what to do with it), was now perched on a chair, her face turned away and looked ready to cry. The motherly retired lady, who had been calling us "honey" all day and bringing chairs for us to sit on, and had told us earlier that when she got home she was going straight to bed (not to sleep but to finish reading her novel), now resigned herself to reading in the gym and opened her book. I had thought earlier of asking my friends to stop at my house for dinner - didn't look like that was going to happen now. There was still a wrap apiece left in the picnic bag, should I get them out now I wondered.
Suddenly there was a commotion. The challenger woman who had been hanging out with us all day - apparently she didn't have proper credentials! She wasn't even supposed to be there, let alone take close looks at the voting machines. "I brought what they gave me," she said. She tried to make phone calls but none of them yielded anything. I felt sorry for her, poor thing. "You guys are getting paid, right? I am a volunteer", she had said earlier. "Someone else was supposed to come but they didn't show up to share my shift", she had said sadly. She seemed like a sincere person who had come to do her part for democracy and catch out wrongdoers meddling with the electoral system. She had spent her entire day being bored for nothing. "Thank you for your time", she said to the chairman in a subdued voice and left with a woebegone look on her face.
Finally, the absentee ballots! But we were far from done. The ballots had to be taken out from the tabulator and packed up with all the other things, various containers needed to be sealed, we stood around the table and signed the 20 reports that required all our signatures. The retired lady's feet were killing her, I brought her a chair. The co-chair, a young woman who hadn't said much all day, put it the last signature and left abruptly without saying goodbye to anyone (the poor girl works two jobs and had to be up early). The chairman really came into his own about this time. Oblivious of the long faces around, him he hummed cheerfully as he packed up the equipment. "Can someone get me scissors?" I handed him a pair. "I feel like a surgeon, hand me the scalpel, tra-la-laa-la" he said taking the scissors. He stuffed the power cords into a compartment in the tabulator box and shut it firmly. "I feel like I'm sewing up the patient. toodle-doo-oo" One had to admire his sang froid.
The chairman still had to go over to the other precinct and do all the signatures etc. "You should go home now, there isn't much left to do", we said to the retired lady. "No, that wouldn't be like a good team player", she demurred. The chairman was busy wrapping up the other precinct but wanted us to wait to carry things to his car. "You really should leave", we said again to the retired lady, "the two of us can manage". "Are you sure girls? Okay", she shuffled off limping. A lady from the other precinct bustled over, her long ear hoops dangling, this time to shoo us away, "Go on, go home, we can get this stuff to the car, hurry up and leave! It's been an exhausting day - I'm 72 and I'm not sure I'm doing this again". She looked cheerful, energetic and very fresh for 11:30 pm on an election night. She was so authoritative that we obeyed.
It was late, so we three decided to go sleep at one of our houses. Gathered round the table at 12:30 pm, out of tight shoes, changed and feeling refreshed (two of us in borrowed nighties), we ate the veggie wraps and fruit that had miraculously survived a wole day in a hot gym and agreed that it had been an experience to remember. That night I slept like a log, so deeply that, when I woke up 6 hours later, I felt completely rejuvenated.
When was the last time I fell into bed that exhuasted? Not recently. "You don't work very hard on a daily basis, do you?" observed my inner voice. When was the last time I had gotten together with a bunch of strangers and kindly, methodically held each other's hands through an activity that we were all feeling shaky about? Never? "Remember this," whispered my inner voice, "don't forget this feeling."
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