Taking the challenge to work the polls
Four months ago, I came across this Tweetstorm from @mattblaze. That day, I signed up to work with the NYC Board of Elections in Kings County, and on November 6, I worked my first election.
Matt was absolutely right. I studied election procedures in grad school, but — as is usually true — readings and discussions don’t compare to real world experience.
Working the polls was nothing like what I’d expected, and was some of the most challenging work I remember doing. Now, especially with the news coming out of Florida, I really appreciate the window I’ve lived of the behind the scenes process of conducting an election.
Here’s three things you probably don’t know about voting:
1. The problems aren’t what you think, and there’s no easy fix
My election district received media attention for its lines, which stretched around the block at one point in the late morning. Some of our voters had to wait over three hours. When the local NBC affiliate arrived, the reporter was surprised to learn that our problems were not the result of failing voting machines.
In fact, the delay was due to the check-in procedure. We could only check people in one at a time, looking them up by last name and address. With the opening of several high rises in the neighborhood, so many people had moved in to the district in the last two years that the lines overwhelmed a single binder of last names starting A-M.
When our machines ultimately did go down (primarily due to paper jams), procedures were in place to allow people to keep voting. We collected these votes in the locked Emergency Ballot Box and scanned them after the polls closed.
It was frustrating to learn that the fix for the jammed machine was no more complex than pulling crumpled paper from a LaserJet. But we had to wait over an hour for an independent technician to revive the ballot scanner, due to rules that defined what areas of the voting machine we as poll workers could interact with, and which areas were sealed.
We heard a lot of suggestions from voters throughout the morning about how to improve the process at our polling place. And while everyone making these suggestions was sincere and honest, living the process and thinking about how to fairly conduct an election showed how difficult making even small changes can be.
2. Poll workers don’t count votes. They count ballots
Most of our day as poll workers surrounds the ballot itself. We’re responsible for making sure voters get the correct ballot for their address, have privacy and space to fill it out, are accommodated for any disabilities they may have (a core part of our training), and are able to feed their ballot into the machine to be counted. But we’re primarily responsible for making sure every single ballot is accounted for at the end of the day.
It might surprise most voters to learn that we poll workers don’t count the votes, we count the ballots. Table inspectors keep track of how many ballots they begin the day with, how many are handed to voters, and how many are voided due to errors in marking. Machine inspectors provide a tally of how many ballots were cast, and the two groups work together after the doors close at the polling place to make sure the numbers all add up. We all keep an eye on the doors to make sure that no ballots walk in or walk out.
While electronic voting, encryption, blockchain, and other new technologies might seem like they would simplify the voting process, each would require voters to outsource their trust in the process to a machine. While we now rely on machines to tabulate our choices, hardworking people are able to make sure, at the polling place level, that the election has been run fairly simply by counting the paper ballots that we started and ended the day with.
3. It was a harder day than I could have imagined
If you asked me last Monday if I’ve ever worked a hard day in my life, like most I would have said yes. I worked in several grocery stores in high school and thought I knew what a hard day on my feet was. Election day, for me, was something else entirely.
Standing for hours on end is the reality for many Americans at work. I can only imagine their reactions when they see new trends like standing desks for those of us privileged enough to spend our days sitting in an $800 chair. That can of course be taxing, too, but the physical strength and endurance often required to earn even minimum wage can be staggering for those not used to it.
For the last decade, I’ve spent most of my life in a chair at work. Standing for nearly 18 hours was an incredible challenge. But every time I thought to complain, I looked at some of my colleagues at the polls. One elderly man using a cane spent the entire day walking back and forth between the machines and the check-in tables to circulate the privacy folders. Another woman, perhaps 60 years my senior, stood near the privacy booths giving instructions to voters, taking only short breaks to sit. These people didn’t bat an eye at the physical stress of being at the poll site from 5 a.m. to nearly midnight, and many would start their next work day at 6 a.m.
Should you become a poll worker?
Absolutely. You’ll learn everything Matt said, and a lot more about yourself. Hundreds more poll workers would also relieve the burden of the current crop; working the polls shouldn’t require an 18-hour workday.
Don’t make merely casting your ballot your standard for participating in our democracy. Help 1,000 people vote, count their ballots, and help us work together to make the process more seamless, inclusive and fair.