6:20 am: It’s still pretty dark as I drive to the high school to open the polls. We rush around trying to open and set up the 6 E-Slate machines we have been given for our precinct AND get the machine that assigns the passcodes booted and up. Four men are already lining up to vote.
7:00 am: The polls open with about 25 people in line. The line grows longer and longer because 3 of the voting machines won’t boot up. After a call to election central, they come on and we make some progress. The wait to vote is now longer than the wait to check in. Lots of writing in is going on.
7:40 am: Three high school students show up. Their government teacher released them from class to help work the election. After being sure that they all are 18 and registered to vote, they are sworn in and I put them to work checking in the voters. They’ll get service hours for their time. It’s fun to have the kids helping us. They’ll go back to class for the second period. They told us their teacher will be sending a couple more to work after school, which will be great! We’ll need help at the end of the day.
7:45 am: The Republican poll watcher shows up. Where’s the Democrat?
8:10 am: The Democrat poll watcher arrives. Both of them are seated behind the voter check-in desk. Another worker arrives, and she also offers to be our Hindi/Urdu translator if needed.
9:10 am: Things are slowing down but we still have a line. Each machine has a list of the declared write-in candidates at each machine. I think that is helping the process. So far no one is confused and only a couple of people have requested assistance with the machines.
9:30 am: Time to post a tally! 153 voters so far. 840 voted early, which is 25% of the registered voters in the precinct.
9:45 am: First voter to screw up the “vote twice for Shelley” maneuver is reported.
10:00 am: The line is shorter now. A couple of smart young mothers came in with toddlers and babies who are doing just fine now. Bringing in tired and hungry kids around noon to one when there is a line is just asking for trouble. Things are pretty quiet.
11:30:Time to post again! 293 voters.
2:15 pm: Well, I spoke too soon. We had a big rush for the last three hours and things are settling down again now because most people avoid coming to vote during the time when the high school dismisses. I’ve been helping a lot of people who want to vote for the Republican write-in candidate. The machines won’t let you correct spelling mistakes easily—so there is at least one vote for ShelleySSSSSSSSS. Hopefully the voter’s intent will be clear. Mrs. America called out for a pizza and salad delivery for the troops because we were getting peckish and couldn’t spare anyone for a lunch run. They have been nibbling on the Texas Chocolate Sheetcake I brought all day—hope there will be some left for El Jefe. The poll watchers both left, but will probably come back at the end of the day.
8:52 pm: We had over 650 voters. I had no more time to blog during the election. Now I’m home eating the warmed-over pizza I didn’t have time to eat during the day and quaffing a restorative glass of vino.
Here’s the bottom line--(650 voters) X (6 e-slate machines) X (80% of the voters taking an average of 10 minutes to write in a candidate) X (40% of the voters behind on the learning curve of using the aforementioned e-slate machines) = over 100 voters in line at 7 pm when we closed the polls. They all got to vote of course. It took an extra hour and 15 minutes to vote them all.
I spent hours on my feet helping voters use the machines and enter their write-in candidate. In my nightmares I am going to see SHELLEY SEKULA GIBBS written on a wall like Nebuchadnezzar saw MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN.
I’m done. Goodnight everyone. Thankfully, there is one small piece of cake left for El Jefe.
5 comments:
You are a true hero. Seriously.
My husband was the first to vote today (6:30 am). It took 45 minutes because the machines didn't work, there was no answer at tech support, the poll workers didn't know what to do, and when they finally decided to give him a provisional ballot, they didn't realize there were three pages; the two with the local issues were stored separately from the one with the candidates.
Solutions finally decided upon, with advice from on high: let people use provisional ballots (they had no regular paper ballots) and put them in envelopes clearly marked Regular Ballot OR let people vote in the other precinct on the other side of the church basement, since there were no precinct issues and those machines worked fine.
He has no idea whether he has voted or not. I decided to go back after work, and I am pretty sure that I did vote. In the other precinct. After being held up for several minutes by a poll watcher who wanted to berate the really nice and endlessly patient poll worker for all the things that had gone wrong hours earlier.
Adventures in democracy.
Bless you for spending your day this way.
Thanks for a full day of election support.
I used a paper ballot so I wouldn't have to wait for the one electronic machine. (Both kids were with me because they had a dental check-up.) If there were any problems, they weren't apparent to me.
Even with all that goes wrong, I am thankful that voters don't generally have to worry about being killed for their participation in this process. Give me electronic hassles, waiting too long, hanging chads, etc. over a death count.
A job well done. I'm actually enjoying going to the polls again after years in Vote-by-Mail-Only Oregon.
Poll-watchers inside the polling place? Not in WV. They have to be a couple hundred feet away!
Sounds like you had a long and exciting day.
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