Was afraid I would oversleep so went to bed just after eight on Monday night. Woke up fine at four, dressed in my star-spangled blue polo shirt and comfortable sneakers and had time to stop at 7-11 for a 20 ounce coffee before arriving at the local high school promptly at five o'clock. AM.
Didn't have much for introductions all around but there were six women and one other man besides myself. Setting out of tables and taping up of posters and sticking signs in the lawn outside was most of the first 45 minutes. Set up three privacy tables which were kind of Samsonite suitcase things providing a flat smooth surface atop collapsable legs with screens on either side and a light above. Set the horrid Windoze laptop electronic voting machine on a low table for any potentially differently-abled voters who might need a magnified touch screen to vote (thank goodness no one asked for it.) We were having a bit of trouble getting the ballot box unlocked to verify there were no leftovers inside and mount the electronic visual scanner on it securely. With the clock ticking away seconds until the Polls official opening time of 0600 we finally had everything in place.
I had the pleasure of welcoming the very first voter in York County Precinct 102 right after opening, a young woman who expressed sincere satisfaction at finally being first in place after years of voting. I gave her the red-white-and-blue "I Voted" sticker and got a big smile in return.
It was steady all day with only about three occasions when there were no voters in the poll for a few minutes, and maybe as many as three times when voters were waiting for one of the three booths to open so they could mark their ballots. Every vote was taken on a paper ballot with the various candidates listed by office and a bubble by their name to fill in with a black marker, which was then fed into the scanner which tabulated the vote and dropped it into the lockbox. Pretty smart machine really in that if you blacked out too many candidates in one race it would refuse to accept and eject the paper back out the front with an error message in a little LED window. You then tell the voter their mistake, to black in all the candidate circles in order to "spoil" the ballot and give them another blank. I think we had maybe three "overvotes." We only had one voter whose credentials were questionable since she had recently moved, and had to wait on calls to the Registrar before allowing her to proceed. And there were two voters physically unable to enter the polls so in each instance two Election Officers walked outside with a special folder to bring back those ballots in secret and enter them into the box. Other than that, just ordinary citizens voting in an ordinary way.
This was my home district so I did not have to vote via absentee ballot ... when there was a lull in the action I cast my own vote. It was dismaying to see a handful of candidates out of a dozen or so local offices were running unopposed. State Senator. State Delegate. Sheriff. County Supervisor. Clerk of Court. School Board. Soil and Conservation Board.
What the hell kind of election is it when there is no choice?
Worse than that I suppose is the fact that we had a grand total of 452 votes out of 1485 registered voters. What, about thirty percent turnout. I have made public appearances a number of times where I spoke before crowds bigger than 500. If I could not make a lasting impression on more than 227 people then I got up late and left my notes at home. And had my fly open. And a buger snot hanging out my nose. I must check and see what some of these elected gigs pay. Oh, and probably have to decide where I stand on issues or some such rot.
Seriously, can it be this accessible to step up and push aside people who no longer serve the public interest? There must be something I am missing. All the bitching and snarling and gnashing of teeth and there are only 452 neighbors motivated to get up and out and do something to change things? It's FREE! What a waste of karma and psychic effort when a solution appears ready at hand.
Polls closed at seven o'clock sharp and there was no long line of people outside. We mash some buttons on the two machines which print out tape totals - nothing on the WinVote - breaking down the count and candidates by races. Two teams working independently fill out paper spreadsheets detailing the number of ballots issued, candidate totals, and write-in votes while the Captain of Election Officials calls in preliminary totals to the Board of Elections. I kept waiting for the balloons and confetti to fall from the ceiling but I think they must have overlooked it somehow. All there was was a bunch of volunteers getting $90 apiece for a sixteen hour day trying to get the tallies to add up and pack up the ballots and clear the poll.
It was my sincere pleasure to meet: Joan, Jack, Louise, Linda, Margaret, Elizabeth, and Majorie, who have been a team at the 102nd Precinct for many, many elections. Their dedication was impressively apparent and they didn't have to have the delightful humor which they did. I could easily understand if this felt too much like work to be happy, but you all were.
* * * * * * *
Well it appears that we did not do a perfect job this go 'round ... I got a call from the Poll Captain and our report-out of the write-in totals don't match the tapes. We all have to go down to the Registrar's tomorrow, pull the ballots out of the Courthouse, and do a manual recount of all the write-in votes. Thank God there are only 452 of them.
Oh ... and this ...
