I decided I wanted to work the polls for the 2016 presidential election, and Marcia from the Franklin County Board of Elections in Columbus Ohio set me up for a training session that same day.
I don’t claim that my experience was in any way exceptional or different from any other poll worker’s experience. But it was mine.
On the morning of election day, I woke up at 4:37am, cooked a quick breakfast, put on dress clothes, grabbed my lunchbox and walked to my assigned voting location – a nearby Baptist church – by 5:30am.
In the flurry of setup in the hour before the polls opened at 6:30am, I went through the procedures I had trained for and learned previously: recording the numerous sets of numbers on tamper-proof seals, covering everything from the lock holding the stacked voting machines in their carts, to the memory card slots on each machine. We took our oaths, arranged the machines, powered them up, initiated them, set up tables, put up signs, and taped electrical cord to the floor.
I felt nervous for the voters to arrive, but I had attended the mandatory two hour training session, attended a voluntary training session the Sunday before, had completed an online training session, and thoroughly read my handbook. I didn’t want to mess this up; I felt a great sense of responsibility to perform this duty well. The first voters arrived almost twenty minutes before the polls opened; they waited to wait in line. At 6:30am, the Voting Location Manager announced that the polls were open, and the roster judges began asking for names, addresses, and identification.
For the next thirteen hours, I helped approximately 200 people cast their votes. I helped all kinds of people cast their ballots.
For the most part, my interaction with voters would last about one minute. I’d walk them to their machine, gave my spiel (which I modified to be more and more clear and succinct as the long hours passed), smiled, and departed. I set up chairs for people to sit on that couldn’t stand for long themselves. I helped people to vote that had never voted. I helped people to vote that had done so many times. But sometimes, voters needed help beyond a mere explanation of how the machine worked.
If a voter asks for assistance, in some cases we can answer their questions without looking at their screens. In the occasion that a voter should need assistance of the kind that necessitates a poll worker look at the voter’s screen, the law requires that two Election Officials from different political parties must be present to ensure that the poll workers’ assistance be impartial — that they not influence how the voter will vote but merely to assist them in making their own choices. My most memorable experiences happened while doing this.
One woman seemed so overwhelmed by the screen that, based on the things she said about not understanding how or where to make selections despite numerous explanations, I suspected she couldn’t read (or read very well) and just didn’t want to tell us so. Eventually she asked us where to press for the presidential candidate of her choice and to skip all other selections, as is her right.
One old man said very quietly to me once I explained how to use the machine that he was going to need help. I called over another poll worker and read every word of the ballot to this voter excluding, after I had read him the first one, the long and wordy bonds. I showed him which candidates were where on the screen, and watched patiently as his slow-moving finger selected and accidentally deselected his choices again and again because of how badly it shook. I helped a different elderly woman that kept saying how bad her glasses were through this same process.
One tiny old woman raised her hand, and once it was clear I couldn’t help her myself, I asked for assistance. We asked her questions about her screen and she shook her head. We asked her what she needed help with, and she looked uncertain. She eventually said “Chinese” and “husband” and pointed toward the line of waiting voters. I rose my finger in the air to say “one moment, please” and walked to her husband, who himself appeared agitated.
I said, “do you speak English?”
He responded “yes, I do.”
“Your wife needs you.”
She voted. Later, he voted.
The long hours passed, and people voted.
…
Some U.S. citizens can’t read, or have limited reading ability. Some U.S. citizens can’t walk, or have difficulty standing. Some U.S. citizens can’t see, or can’t see well. Some U.S. citizens can’t speak English, or barely any at all. Some U.S. citizens are deaf, or can’t hear well. Some U.S. citizens have difficulty using touchscreen voting machines. Some U.S. citizens are barely able to get to the polling location. Some U.S. citizens wear religious garb, and some don’t. Some U.S. citizens wear dress clothes, and some wear stained and dirty clothes. Some wear expensive shoes, and some wear inexpensive shoes. But all eligible U.S. citizens have the right to vote; all U.S. citizens have the right to chose their government representatives – to participate in the process of determining how the institutions to which they belong should function.
…
At my voting location in the capital of a swing state, and especially during this particular election, I expected for some chaos to greet me during my time working. But everyone was kind. Everyone was cooperative. Nobody waited longer than forty minutes, and most waited much shorter than that. It was professional and efficient.
At the end of the night, the voting data was collected from the machines (in our case, there were twelve of them) and was printed from a handheld printer onto a slip of paper that must have been ten feet long. Two copies of the results are printed- one to be taped to the door of the polling location for the public to view, and the other to be taken back to the Board of Elections.
I held that printer as it went:
“zip zip zip zip zip-zip … zip zip zip zip zip-zip”
…and unfurled the collective will of the precinct’s voters onto the floor. There was something special about seeing the results for the first time, line by line, issue by issue, candidate by candidate. Something special about holding a device that was revealing, in hard copy, the political aspirations of the hundreds and hundreds of people we helped vote that day, feeling it vibrate with each printed line. Imagining that this collective effort between all my fellow poll workers that day was but merely the work done at one voting location, in one county, in one state. This is a large and diverse country.
The memory cards were removed from the machines to be taken to the Board. The machines were folded up and rolled onto their carts. Fresh tamper-proof seals were applied and their numbers recorded. Signs and flags were taken down. Everything was put away. The Voting Location Manager said that our roles had been performed and we could go home. It was 8:28pm, and I had been on location for 15 hours.
If you’ve never worked a poll before, I recommend that you do so if you can. Participating in this democratic process was very rewarding to me. My only wish was that more people participated, for I would have gladly worked harder and stayed longer to help more Americans be heard.
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