When I volunteered to work at the
polls on Election Day in 2019, I was a first-timer, a rookie. Everything felt
new to me—from arriving at the municipal building bleary-eyed to begin work at
5:15 for the start of a 15-hour day, to constructing and deconstructing the
voting booths following the lead of more veteran poll workers, to assuming my specific
role, accepting voting authority slips and pushing the buttons to activate the
machines that enabled voters to record their choices.
 |
| Lured by the high pay and long hours, I signed up again in 2021. |
Like any rookie, I was both nervous
and excited. I made a few rookie mistakes, such as inadvertently allowing a
voter from District 8, across the room, to vote in my District 3 machine. (That
required adding a note to the front of the poll book to explain why District 3
had one too many votes in its machines, and District 8 had one too few. Every
number counts, after all!)
I took a year off in 2020, feeling
reluctant to chance the Pandemic. But I was back for Primary Day last week, a
slightly seasoned veteran. And the year off had made a difference, not so much
in me as in the voters themselves. Primary Day is necessarily partisan. In New
Jersey, voters have to declare their party identity and vote only for candidates
of that party in the Primary. My job this time even included pushing a button to
switch the machine between party ballots before the voter entered it.
 |
| This year's primaries seemed more than partisan. |
Somehow, partisan politics seemed
more upfront this time around. And distrust was in the air. At least four different voters, all declared
Republicans, asked if we were using Dominion voting machines. They seemed only
partly mollified when we told them no. Had they ever questioned the machine
manufacturer in previous years? I doubt it.
Then there was the couple who,
after signing their names in the poll book next to their previous year’s
signature, and clearly matching those signatures, turned to me and said, “Who
is verifying our signatures?” I assumed they were joking and replied with a
wink, “She’s checking yours, and you’re checking hers.” “That’s why we’re in
the mess we’re in,” the man said with a tone. Unable to just smile or nod, I
said, “Not much of a mess.” That set the
man off, and his voice went up in volume, “Just look at our border. More than
40,000 illegals coming in each month. That’s what we get for electing Biden,
and anybody who voted for him deserves the blame.” I wisely decided not to point out that this
was a primary to decide only local and state candidates.
There were other new wrinkles this
year. Several dozen voters needed assistance in typing in the names of write-in
candidates who had not used the petition process to get on the ballot formally.
For some older voters that was not such an easy task. But we were there to
help, and, following rules outlined in our poll workers’ manual, made sure that
there was one poll worker from each party in the booth to assist the voter. We
tried hard to do it right.
I have been voting for many years
and working the polls for only two. But this time seemed a little testier to
me. I plan to be back “behind the lines” in November to help things run as smoothly
and as accurately as possible. Trust me.
 |
| And I helped! |
