Hang on to something! Here's that review of Election Day, May 19, 2009, from the CO02 precinct in Nevada County, CA you've been waiting for.
I left the house, nearly conscious, at 5:50am, toting my Election Manuals, light reading, knitting basket, a little cooler full of food for the day and a definite sense (gained from the 4+ hours of instruction the week before) that Procedure is King in Election World. I knew there was a lot of it, and most of it for some good reason I was pretty sure, but couldn't recall a whole lot of the voluminous mountain of detail quickly transmitted to us about the process and machinery. I wasn't concerned. There would be a light turnout, most likely, and 2 other, more experienced, "judges" (my title for the day-though I was considering hanging on to it for a bit longer), not to mention a supervisor, or "inspector", the most experienced and well-trained of us all, to show me how it's done. I would watch and learn.
I arrived a little after 6:05, proud to have beaten the drop-dead "arrive-by" deadline of 6:15, and what I assumed would be my most difficult task of the day, since I'd gone to bed too late. The polling place is inside a corner of the garage of a residence in a lovely, cedar-forested neighborhood. Our space was draped off with blue tarp in front of the roll-up door and included an old sink and small, perpetually running freezer (next to MY chair, as it turned out--it turned itself off once for a few minutes and it was as if a fog had lifted--briefly). Night before, the Elections office had dropped off the cardboard voting booths, two folding tables and the enormous, Officially-Sealed clear plastic bag enveloping the E-Trinity--a scanner/ballot box the size of a small refrigerator (the "e-Scan"), the electronic voting machine (bigger and called the "e-Slate with VBO"-never mind), and the nerve center of the operation, the desktop JBC. All have many serial-numbered official "seals" over their different parts and ports and all must be recorded on special log sheets--twice--once at the beginning of the day, and once at the end.
I found "Fergie", our Inspector, busily dumping the contents of our supplies-boxes onto the tops of the tables looking a bit like one of Santa's elves (beard and all). At 70, he's a retired Forest Service firefighter, truck/heavy equipment operator and Flat-Coat Retriever breeder. Five minutes with Fergie gave me a clue that my "straight-line" day might come with a few curves. Friendly and loquacious, "procedure" was the last thing on his mind. I grabbed a few signs that needed posting, figuring he was fine on his own for a few minutes, but upon coming back in for the rest, I found he'd ripped the machines out of the bag (cutting a seal--unlogged, and tossing it "somewhere") and plugged them all in without regard to the "order" or careful numbers-documentation I'd been taught. I set to furiously pawing though the mountain of supplies looking for the Opening Procedures flip book and the Seals Entry log in order to catch up and carefully verify all the numbers and boot-up codes.
In the middle of the chaos, Pamela, the second judge, and tempermentally, far more procedures-oriented than I (not saying too much) arrived, 15 minutes late. She sees I'm trying to contain Fergie's random activity and tries to help organize things as the 7am poll-opening time loomed. We found the seals log and the orders of operations and tried to recoup the procedure, recording numbers and punching in machine codes. She hadn't taken the classes for a long time had forgotten the details, too, even though she'd worked elections, before.
About 6:45, the third judge, Bruce, having overslept, ran up, apologized, and dashed out to finish the sign-posting I'd left undone. By 7, we were, miraculously, almost ready. It wasn't pretty, but we'd found the ballots and pens and sign-in sheets. However, the e-voting machine was giving us a code we couldn't understand (much later, we found that page) and we made the call to our region's super for help. Fortunately, we didn't have any voters right out the chute. Turns out we needed some outside help (not our fault--batteries issue) to get the electronic voting machine running properly which we got by mid-morning. Just in time for voters to decline to use it most of the time.
Between voters, we mostly chatted amongst ourselves all day, munching our food and stretching our legs now and then. No reading, no knitting. Fergie had fire-fighting stories and ate nothing but bear claws morning to night so far as we could see. Pamela, my age-ish, and a chiropracter who's converted to Hinduism, talked about her brain-age-improving programs, munching gluten-free muffins (at least three). Bruce, a retired high school English teacher and mountain biker, told us all about his love of Chaucer and recited some in actual Middle English. 13 hours, 84 voters, so there was lots of time for chatting. Regardless of the complexity of the actual issues at hand, the ballot, itself, was simple. Fill in six boxes. There were special problems with a few voters, which sent us all flying to the manuals, and which we solved (we hope) correctly, at the end of the day (I'm pretty sure there are more than 500 ways ballots can go wrong,). Fergie lost the provisional voters log (his official job) twice and forgot to get a signature from one p-voter. Otherwise, it was mostly quiet until 8pm.
Our official "closing" procedures book was missing most of it's pages. We found another list in another manual and I put Pamela in charge. It was still crazy and not terribly textbook. To look at us, it was all for the first time. Many of the problems, to be fair, came by way of confusing and sometimes contradictory terminology from the Elections Office--TWO boxes labeled for voted ballots, none for unvoted ballots, for example. Come ON, people! But, at the end, our numbers balanced and we had everything shut down, counted, logged, sealed, resealed and signed multiple times in very official-looking boxes and bags and envelopes. Of course, it took us 2 1/2 hours ('til about 10:30) and they even called us to find out what was taking so long (ooh, so embarrassing for precinct CO02).
I elected (in the absence of any other volunteer) to accompany Fergie to the County Elections Office (must have 2 people at all times with the ballots) and said good-bye to Pamela and Bruce. We piled it all into his Well-Used pick-up and drove it down there. As they checked it all off for us, it was going so smoothly until--doh!--Fergie had (big sigh) misplaced that %#&@* provisional voters log--again. It was finally located as we all (including other election officials) spread EVERYTHING out on the linoleum, and examined every bag, folder and box again and again around 11-ish.
Fergie drove us back my car at the polling place and I told him I'd look for him at the Draft Horse Classic this year. Such a good guy. Good Inspector? Not so much, maybe. As I drove home I pondered the significance of the ballot and the privilege of...ha, not really! Mainly, I was just thinking about how amazing it is that it all works as well as it does.
Will I do it again? Sure, why not? But I'm bringing cookies, next time, and a way to make some tea. Plus a little experience.
