Guest Entry By Helen: A Day At The Polls

Yesterday I worked as a poll worker in the New York primary election.  Marcus thought it would be fun for me to write a guest blog entry to share my experience.

Why did I sign up to be a poll worker?  I received an email from Citizens Union earlier this summer, asking people to be poll workers.  It sounded like a cool thing to do and so I signed up.  My friends who have worked as poll workers before told me that it’s “really boring.”  But for $200 pay for a day’s work, how can anyone decline?  As it turned out, my day was nothing but interesting:

5:00 AM – I woke up. (I promise this blog entry gets better as it goes along.)

5:30 AM – I woke Marcus up to walk with me to the polling site, which was in the public high school right across the street from our apartment.

5:35 AM – Many booths and tables were set up in the school’s lobby and cafeteria areas.  I found the table to which I was assigned:  Assembly District 65, Election District 71.  There were six of us poll workers assigned to the table.

5:40 AM – We frantically unpacked our supplies (signs, voter cards, instructions, affidavit ballots, voter lists, etc.), set up our table, and opened our voting booth.

6:00 AM – The polls opened.  Our first voter was an older man dressed in a suit and accompanied by a suitcase.  We asked him whether he was a Democrat or Republican.  We found his name in the voter list.  He signed next to his name.  We wrote his name on a green voter card (green card for Democrat; red card for Republican).  We turned the lever on the outside of the booth to where it said “Democrat.”  The man went inside the booth, voted, and left.  Phew, it went pretty smoothly.

7:40 AM – I spotted Marcus at the voting booth next to ours.  He had come in to vote on his way to work.  I silently willed him to vote for Mark Green, the less popular (but more appropriate) candidate for the Attorney General office.  As we waved goodbye to each other, I saw in his smile that he had voted for Andrew Cuomo instead.

7:58 AM – The high school students and teachers began streaming through the lobby to their respective classrooms, creating chaos among voters, poll workers, and everyone in between.  The information clerk woman, whose job was to direct voters to their voting booths, had a hard time picking out the voters from the teachers.  Finally, she figured out a way to tell the difference, “if they walk in looking purposeful, they’re the teachers; otherwise, they’re the voters.” 

8:25 AM – It was kind of slow, so I walked to the voting booth next to ours to vote myself.  I became a U.S. citizen last November, so this voting thing was all new to me.  I signed my name, received my green voter card, and went through the black curtains into the voting booth.  I moved the big lever to the voting position, turned the little black knobs according to my selection, and pushed the big lever back to the left.  What an old-fashioned, mechanical way of voting, I thought.  But at the same time, the sounds made by the big lever somehow made it feel so important and official.  I was glad I voted in these machines before New York moves to electronic voting next year.   

9:03 AM – As I was just starting to read my Agatha Christie novel, a woman in her early 50s came to our table.  We looked up her name in the voter list.  “My husband’s name is right above mine.  Can you tell me if he is still registered as a Republican?” she asked.  We looked, “yup, he’s registered as a Republican.”  “I need to remind him to change it.”  “A party conversion, huh?” my fellow poll worker asked, about to congratulate her on successfully changing her husband’s political views.  “Oh, no,” she objected, “he has always been a Democrat; but years ago, people registered themselves in a different party in order to be able to vote in a way that was best for the Democrats.”  This was obviously something people did a long time ago, because the woman turned to me and said, “This was before your time.”  I learn something new everyday.   

10:13 AM – We had 18 voters by this point.  Not surprisingly, being in Manhattan, everyone who came up to us had been Democrats.  Voter #19 arrived—a friendly young woman dressed in a dark suit.  Following the procedure, we asked her whether she was a Democrat or Republican.  “Republican,” she said.  We did a silent gasp collectively and tried not to stare at this rare breed in front of us.  “Don’t look at me with those crazy eyes!” she said.  “Ha ha ha,” we laughed with her, our laughs slightly more hearty than hers.

11:30 AM – Even though we had only 38 voters in the first six hours, I was only on page 25 in my novel, thanks to my talkative fellow poll workers.  Jimmy was the most entertaining of all.  He was a 61-year-old, black, New York native, jazz-loving, single, Vietnam veteran.  He told us about forging his mother’s signatures on his high school report cards, back when he drank lots of coffee and beer.  Now he drank neither coffee nor beer.  He told us about being drafted, about the dangerously high dosage of drugs the VA hospital gave him when he reported having nightmares after the war, about how he escaped from the hospital once he realized he was worse off taking the drugs, about how the Iraq war was worse than Vietnam, and about his cousin who insisted on treating him to Starbucks drinks even though he doesn’t care for coffee.

12:00 PM – It was lunch time.  I got Chinese food takeout and ate at home in front of the TV.  The local news showed footage of local candidates making their appearances at various polling sites.  I felt a tinge of jealousy—how come they had not visited our site?!

1:33 PM – Working professionals had all come and gone; now was the time for the retirees to stop by and vote.  Our next voter reminded me of an older and paler version of Richard Simmons.  The resemblance was in the jolly personality and the colorful headband.  As he walked up to the voting booth after signing and receiving his voter card, he raised his hands in the air happily and said to himself, “Time to vote!”  What a character.

3:15 PM – School was out.  Students streamed through the lobby noisily, again creating a chaotic scene at the polling site.  Then we noticed this one kid, probably in 9th grade, who was being accompanied by a man we assumed to be the vice principal.  A minute later, the kid’s father came.  He was dressed in street clothes, in his 30s, and walked with a cane.  Apparently, the boy was an hour late returning from lunch, and had to serve detention that day.  The father lectured the boy with a slightly raised voice.  Even though the lecture sounded harsh, we could tell he was a very caring father.  As the vice principal led the boy back up the stairs to detention, the father called out to his son, “Are you okay?”  Such a question is so frequently used when a child scraps his knees or falls off his bike, but in this case, a caring father was making sure his son wasn’t wounded by his words.

5:00 PM – Now was dinner time.  I went home and cooked myself some pasta.  I ate it my favorite way—with butter and salt. 

7:00 PM – Just two more hours until the close of the polls.  We started talking through our plan of action—the faster we close the poll, the earlier we get to go home!  Our huddle was interrupted by a commotion at the table across from ours.  Apparently a woman had walked in with her dog held in her arms.  The poll workers at that table informed her that animals (except for service animals) were not allowed at the poll site.  The woman was furious, “I have been voting here the last eleven years and this is the first time I have been told dogs are not allowed.”  Since I love dogs and hers was a cute one, I walked up to her and offered to hold her dog outside while she voted.  She ignored me and continued to argue with the poll workers.  No one budged.  Finally, the policeman escorted the woman and her dog outside.  She never returned.

8:27 PM – My poll worker friend Adrienne had made it a goal for our team to get at least 100 voters by the end of the day, which would be a 20% turnout in our election district.  She even created a grading system, “If we get 90 voters, that’s a C; 95 is a B; 100 is an A.”  When our 100th voter finally came during this last hour, we all cheered.

9:00 PM – The poll was closed!  We frantically packed everything up, following detailed instructions provided in our poll worker book.  We closed our booth and recorded the number of votes received by each candidate.  (Green had more votes than Cuomo in our election district!)  As the chairperson, I wrote the numbers down carefully.  We all took turns signing the documents.

9:27 PM – After some confusion regarding which envelope goes inside which larger envelope, we locked up our poll booth and submitted the paperwork to the policeman.  We said our goodbyes.  “See you in November!”   

 

Comments

[Rex]

Fantastic! You certainly are a good citizen (even the govt did have to bribe you with $200). You should write your own blog and not ride your husband's coattails!

[Uri]

Looks like you've already got a comment, Helen. Now you've got two. :-)

[Marcus]

I wasn't smiling because I voted for Cuomo; just didn't want to gush with too much affection for Helen while she was working. :)

[Faye]

Great post! In Oregon we voted by mail. I missed the community of the polling place. Doesn't it seem (sounds so corny) to draw us together (democrate, republican, independent, etc etc) for a common cause? I love the idealism I always sensed when I voted at the polls.

Sounds like it was a great experience. No doubt I'll end up comparing your Manhattan description quite different from my new little community voting poll in really rural Kentucky.

Thanks for sharing.