Voting, Ozlu Style
By: Elisheva Goldberg
“I tried to make this stick to the wall—should I take them down?”
Selami Ozlu, a poll worker at the Bay Ridge Elementary School of the Arts, is referring to one of a dozen instructive signs he has plastered on his polling place’s exterior. This particular sign says “vote here” in English, Spanish and Chinese. It has been giving him trouble, flopping off the side of the building despite layers of adhesive around its edges. Ozlu determinedly adds more tape.
Today is Primary Day across New York City, and in Brooklyn’s 43rd district, which includes Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bensonhurts and Bath Beach, the election is up for grabs. It’s a 9-way race with four republicans and five democrats crowding the field. Ozlu says he hasn’t voted yet, and isn’t sure who he’ll choose.
Ozlu has short greying hair and is wearing a red checkered shirt, shiny dress shoes and a name tag. He tells me he is Kurdish, from southeastern Turkey, and that his first name, Selami, means “peace”. Though he became a citizen only two years ago, these are his third elections as a poll worker. He was offered the job when he got his citizenship papers, he says, and from the look on his face, he seized the opportunity with gusto.
“I came to America to do my MA in computer science,” he said. “I was planning on going back home, you know, but I got a job offer.” Still, Ozlu says, it took him 15 years to become a citizen.
First he went home and got married. “My wife waited [in Turkey] for two years while I was in the US.” Now they have one baby and “next week, Tuesday, a second one” he says, grinning.
Ozlu has polio and walks with a distinctive limp. He is grateful to be in the Unites States where health care are easier to come by. “I found that this is the best place for me to live,” he said.
Since receiving his master’s degree he’s worked in “computer programming for banks — software,” he says with pride. But today Ozlu is doing something else, something he might be even prouder of. He is helping voters vote.
