Itinerant Air-Cooled

As one of the last frontiers of the internet where I may speak my piece politically, I thought I would document my experience as a poll worker this Super Tuesday in San Diego, California. I am also enamored by numbers, so expect lots of those.

This year, California is attempting a few paradigm shifts in its election. In most of Southern California, residents may register to vote AND vote on election day, which prompted an extra (fifth) poll worker at each precinct. Since I work well with machines, I've also been trained as a Technical Inspector for my precinct, though I'm primarily going to be working with new voters. What I find most fascinating, is that our county has almost entirely done away with electronic voting machines. Other than sensory assistance machines for those who need them, all voters will be marking their ballot choices in ink. All ballots are sealed in security boxes, and the first and last voters in line must sign paperwork as witnesses to the sealing of the ballot boxes.

There are 2,136 precincts in San Diego County, and now five poll workers at each precinct, for a total of 10,680 volunteers in SDC alone this year. That's 10,680 people that are getting up in time to report at 5:30am, and work with strangers until around 10:30pm. We're all getting a small stipend for our time. Though below minimum wage, the collective stipends in San Diego County will run more than 1.2 million dollars.…

I'm going to set up my precinct tomorrow evening… Will update after… Anyone else out there working a poll?
Robbie

Update: Everyone should have a crack at poll working once in their lives. :) Especially if you are like me and can not sleep at night without accomplishing SOME task.

Apparently responding to phone calls and e-mail in a timely manner got me qualified to work a "high throughput" poll today… We registered a few dozen new voters, took in 181 ballots, and I wager we accepted another 150 "absentee" (vote by mail) ballots.

I assumed it would be difficult to help uninformed voters select my least-favorite politicians.

It was not. A sense of calm came over me as I explained that "American Independent" is not the same as "no party preference" to dozens of voters from 7am to 8pm. It was not difficult to wake up at 4:30am and bicycle to the poll in the dark, nor was it difficult to bicycle home at 10pm after quintuple-checking that each eligible ballot was counted. (It WAS difficult to use my only break to bicycle over to Adrian @ Headflow Masters to discuss oil pumps.)

Working a poll didn't give just a satisfaction of participation in the democratic process; it allowed me to peer into the bowels of the election process and come out wiser. I can not recommend it enough.

See you on the road,
Robbie


(Yes, our polling place was an active boxing gym. I'm the one with the orange/white VW bus embroidered on my jacket )

Thanks for talking about your experience, and encouraging others to do the same. I enjoy hearing about people living their authentic life, for the greater good, by walking their talk. Participating rather than simply complaining. Interesting to hear about the paper ballots. Sometimes it’s best to move backward (analog) in order to move forward.

Good for you, Robbie! You join a number of my friends who have discoverd the democratic process in the past few years. In every case, they have told me that it makes them feel more engaged, more alive, and more empowered.
Colin