Manning the Polls

Tuesday was voting day and my first time to serve as a poll clerk. My friend Sylvia recommended me to work with her, and the pay was pretty good for one day's work. We had to report for duty at the polling place, a retirement community, at 6:15 that morning, and the voting began at 7 a.m. and ran through 7 p.m. that night.

 This was a runoff election so we didn't expect the turnout to be high, but we were happy to see a steady stream of voters throughout the day. Since this polling place was in a retirement community, we saw lots of seniors, and I saw every kind of walker and cane in every color you can imagine. Some of the seniors had difficulties seeing the names on the ballot we we had to read them for them. I've reached the point in my life where I have to carry reading glasses with me, too, so I was able to share my readers with some of the voters ."I have macular degeneration and I can't read well anymore," one fellow said. My dad suffered with that too, so I completely understood. Other voters broke my heart; some were so bent over with osteoporosis that they couldn't reach the voting stand, and one sweet lady was suffering with dementia and didn't quite understand what she was supposed to do. Thankfully one of the other residents came along to escort her back to her room.

The majority of the voters were fine, of course, and Sylvia and I kept up a lively conversation with everyone during the day. The voting machines jammed several times, from people inadvertently trying to vote for two candidates for the same position or inserting a completely blank ballot by mistake, and the machine would beep-beep-beep incessantly until a technician remedied the problem. A sheriff and a voting official came by late in the afternoon to check on us, and another kind soul brought us a box of Krispy Kreme donuts--the resulting sugar rush helped us get through the last hour of voting. At 6 p.m. a singing group came to entertain the residents in the common area outside our room, so the last few participants voted while listening to the strains of "I'll Be Seeing You." We finally closed down at 7 p.m, and we took down all the Vote Here signs, accumulated the ballots and ran the official  printouts from the voting machines.

Before we opened the doors that morning we had to recite a pledge. Here is part: "As a qualified and registered voter of the county, I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully and honestly discharge my duties as poll clerk; that I will not cause any unnecessary delay in voting; and that I will not disclose to any person how any voter has voted."  I have voted in many elections over my life, but as I listened to those words, it was the first time in a long time that I have really thought about the privilege of voting and the importance of exercising that right.