Yesterday was my binannual day at the polls. The day when I get up at about 4:30, if not earlier, drive to the church where our precinct polling station is, meet the rest of the crew, and set up the polling stations. At 7 AM, we unlock the doors, and the flood comes in. When I first did this, in the last Presidential election, there actually was a flood -- they were out the door, up the hill, and into the parking lot. Now, it's usually five or ten people, max. Yesterday, it was three.
At one time, we had six people in line. Usually, it was one. Or none. Mostly none.
One guy forgot to push the 'vote' button, started walking away. After about 30 seconds, a beeper sounds. We call that a 'runaway voter'. It usually means that their vote gets deleted -- we're not allowed to press the button for them. But this was a guy in a walker, moving slow. We got him turned around.
One guy asked if the screen could be made larger, because he'd forgotten his glasses. Apparently, he was able to see, but not read. Had to tell him no. Later, one of the others reminded me that we could have just given him the handicapped machine, which can read the ballot to him. Wish I'd thought of that.
I did a lot of reading. Each time I sat, my feet said Okay, this is good. You aren't planning on standing again any time real soon, are you?
Got to bed around 10:30.
2 comments:
The frontline of democracy!
Have you thought about volunteering in Nigeria? :-) (Please don't! They shoot poll-volunteers over there. Especially if it looks like the "wrong" candidate is going to win.)
It was funny when I told some people that I'm the Judge of Elections for our precinct. You're a judge??? Well, no, not exactly....
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