Ow. Ow.
This is me, the day after I voted about a hundred times. Yep, I spent a good 13 hours yesterday going through the voting process again and again. And again.
In my assigned district, approximately one-third of the eligible voters chose to cast an absentee ballot. And all of those absentee ballots had to processed on Election Day, at the district polling place. So my job as a poll worker was to run the 'voting loop' processing those ballots. All day long, and for another hour after the polls closed.
Here's the 'voting loop' for absentee ballots...
1) Pick up voter number tickets. (From the guy at the head of the line of voters. People were quite generous to us polls workers who repeatedly held up various lines in order to process absentee ballots.)
2) Open and inspect absentee ballots. (Ballots that were filled out in crayon, for example, would need to be remade, as the optical scanners cannot read crayon.)
3) Stand in line to register absentee ballots in the books. (In case the voter tries to vote in person on Election Day. Actually, if the voter shows up in person before his/her absentee ballot is processed, s/he can vote in person and the absentee ballot will not be processed. If the absentee ballot has already been processed, the voter cannot vote again in person.)
4) Run ballots through tabulator. Turn in very precious voter number tickets. (Big headaches if voter number ticket is lost.)
The entire day went surprisingly smoothly. Props to the City Clerk! Props also to the judges in Our Fair State who threw out the lawsuit brought by Our Elected Official that could have made the day much more tense and chaotic. We had only one poll observer of note, whom I christened (in my head) Tightly Wound, and while he was a noticeable presence, he obeyed the rules governing poll observers. It was almost anticlimactic, but in a good way.
All in all I spent 15 1/2 hours at the polls yesterday. By the time I got home and took a shower, McCain was making his concession speech. By the time Obama gave his speech, I was asleep. (Sorry to have missed it, but didn't sleep much the night before and had to be back at work today.)
Here are a few other observations from yesterday...
- Our fearless section leader, Mr. Bob, rocks! A pleasure working with you, sir!
- Poll workers were almost entirely over the age of 55, excepting a small group of high school students. There were just a few of us between the ages of 18-55.
- A body in motion should stay in motion. Seriously, if you have been in motion for four hours, don't sit down for lunch (even for 15 minutes) if you are going to have to be in motion for another 9 hours.
- The fatigued brain is an amazing thing. The output can bear absolutely no resemblance to the input. (This is why we worked in pairs.)
- 'No Sleep Til Brooklyn' makes absolutely no sense, given the context, yet is readily adopted by the aforementioned fatigued brain as a mantra.
- Everybody worries that they are going to be the one to make some hideous mistake while working. (Including me. Hence the no sleep the night before.) I was amazed at how many of the poll workers were working for the first time, and confessed to being kept awake by this fear.
It was a great experience. I'm glad I did it. I'd gladly do it again.
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