My Day at the Voting Booths

This is the second part of my Election Day story

What lasts 15 hours and starts by hanging out a flag and ends by winning a fight with a machine to release a small computer cartridge? Election Day 2019—my first time ever serving as a poll worker.

It is a strange perspective, seeing an election from its behind-the-scenes mechanical side. I did no campaigning or electioneering, no analysis of candidates, and basically no counting of votes. But I did what really counts. I manned two side-by-side voting machines in the Glen Rock Municipal Building and determined who would cast a vote in either one and when. I was sort of a voting booth entry guard. I also pushed a small button that activated the actual voting process for the person inside the booth. It seems to be a lot of power to entrust with a person who had never been a poll worker before. But luckily it didn’t take much skill and involved a certain amount of repetition. 

The badge I wore proudly yesterday

In all, more than 500 people entered and emerged from MY voting booths yesterday. That’s the number of actual voters. There were also numerous children of a wide range of ages and at least four dogs who waited patiently outside the booth wagging their tails while someone held their leash. I’m not sure it was legal to admit non-service dogs, but we were very welcoming yesterday.

I also faced perhaps the single most dangerous aspect of the entire voting process. My job was to invite people who had signed in with my four other colleagues to enter the voting booth that I had helped to assemble earlier in the morning. But first each had to turn over a small square “voting authority” slip to me. I would push a sharp needle precariously through the slip of paper from the back, creating an entry hole and hopefully, but not always, avoiding puncturing my finger. Then I would push the slip up a string to sit with its earlier mates on the side of my voting booth. Only then would I push the button to activate voting.

My stringed up slips. Note that most
are right-side-up!

As the day went on, I took a certain amount of pride and ownership over my stringed-up voting slips. I made sure that each was snug on the string and sat right-side up. I realized how anal I was being about the task when I came back from my lunch break and felt very annoyed that the person who replaced me for the hour had added some slips upside down. It took a certain amount of will power not to turn those around.

But my day was not without a certain amount of drama. One person who should have voted in the machines for a different district, located across the room, had become impatient, crossed the room to join my much shorter line, and “mis”cast his vote in my machine. Nothing illegal but a technical error. I discovered the slip on my pile labeled D-8 instead of D-3 and reported it to a more experienced colleague. She said we had write a note on our end-of-day report to explain why our machines would have one extra vote and the D-8 machines would have one fewer. This was no “hanging chad” disaster, but it was dealt with efficiently.

A more nuanced issue occurred when an elderly woman entered my booth and called out to me for assistance. She had bad arthritis and could not push hard enough against the small squares to indicate her choices. I walked inside and pushed the buttons she indicated. Simple enough? Not really. An election inspector who happened to be in our room at the time, came over to tell me that, in the future, if I walked into a booth, I must be accompanied by another poll worker aligned with the other political party. We would need to be three-in-a-booth. Really? Really. I wondered about this rule until the time someone asked me if there was one button to push to vote for all of the Republican candidates at once. (There wasn’t.) I wanted to ask the person, why would you to do that! I guess I am just a party animal.

So my day was long and just a little eventful. I still had all of my fingers intact, if only a little abused, and I felt that I had done good work in making the democratic process work well in a small borough in northern New Jersey. The candidates may be feeling elated or a little depressed by the results that emerged from my booth and the others around the borough. But none of it could have occurred if I didn’t push that button to activate my machine for more than 500 voters.

Voting—It’s More Complicated than You Think

This is the first of a two-part blogpost. More to come on Wednesday.

Election Day is tomorrow, and I’m going to be doing my part. No, not that election! This one is more mundane. It involves people running for county commission, mayor and town council, and school board. Of course, the results will not be mundane for those running for those positions. And it won’t be mundane for me either.

I'm going to be up front on the back lines.

I'm going to be right up front on the back lines in the voting process. If someone is voting at the Glen Rock Municipal Building, he or she is going to have to go through me to cast their ballot. I’ll be at the table with the voting roster book checking them in or standing beside the voting booth accepting voting authority slips so they can enter the booth. And there are more responsibilities. Even before the polls open, I’ll be helping to set up the room and the voting booths. I’ll be using a yellow key and a silver key (I hope I’ll remember which to use for what), running off a Zero Tally Strip, and inspecting the Provisional Ballot bag.

If all of this sounds complicated, it might be. You see, this is my first time serving as a poll worker. Luckily, I’m not going at this totally blind. I attended a two-hour training session last week, where I was not only given hands on instruction but even took home a 13-section reference guide for easy, um, reference. And I’m assured that I will be teamed with more experienced poll workers tomorrow who already know the ropes. That’s reassuring for me and for the voters who want to be sure that their votes are entered and tallied properly.

Keeping the system unrigged"

What impressed me most at my training session was the complexity of the process for preparing the polling place and the serious way that those involved in the back lines of the voting process (like me) take their duties. When all you do is vote, you are not aware of the “magic” involved. It gives one increased faith in the voting system at a time when the day-to-day political news drives us toward cynicism. And makes the concept of a “rigged system” —at least at my polling place—not even a remote concern.

We even got into some minutiae about the process. For example, if a voter wants to bring a child into the booth with him or her, we are to explain that the child should be on the voter’s left. Why? Because the Cast Vote button is on the right and it lights up when the voter enters the booth. Brightly lit buttons often attract a child’s attention and cry out to be pressed. Once the button is pressed, the vote is complete and cannot be changed or replayed. The voter gets only one shot at the button. Is this what they mean by “one person, one vote”? For those of us on the back lines, it does.

This button isn't child-proof!

I was even taught that should a voter exit the booth without pressing the Cast Vote button and slip out of the room before he or she can be stopped, I can press the button myself to complete the voter’s balloting. Even more interesting is, if the voter leaves before marking any selections in the booth, I can let the next person in line step right in and use the unblemished ballot. It’s a lot of power to contemplate.

But all of the rules and regulations are not my biggest concern as Election Day approaches. I’m more worried about arriving on time—between 5:15 and 5:30 tomorrow morning because the polls open at 6—and staying awake until my responsibilities end sometime after 8 p.m.  To emphasize this point, the Election Commissioner passed around a newspaper clipping at the training session. It included a photo of an election worker snoozing on the job. “Don’t let this be you!” he warned ominously. I wondered if he knows about my habit of drifting off in the afternoon in a chair or in front of the computer.

No nap for me!!!

But not tomorrow. I’m going to be alert and cheerful (but not too cheerful), and I’m going to make the voting process work like a well-oiled machine. And if the machine doesn’t work for some reason, my reference guide includes three different numbers I can call for quick service. I think I’m ready.