From the archives: Six elections, two Election Day stories
A couple of stories about what working the polls has taught me about being a member of a society where people have a hard time seeing eye to eye.
Tuesday will mark my sixth election working the polls.
Each time, it feels a little different.
This time around, when I take my position along with millions of other poll workers at hundreds of thousands of voting sites across the country, I’m channeling all my energy into being, simply, an ambassador for all the other good humans out there who think that “we” is much better than “us” and “they.”
I’d like to think that there’s a network of poll workers who feel similarly. These 14-hour days are an expression of their love for their country, even when they don’t like all of it.
After doing this for half a dozen elections now, I know that this work is an expression of not only integrity but also kindness and open-mindedness and boundaries and generosity all the things I practice all the other days of the year.
I’m not expecting Tuesday to be all sunshine and rainbows.
I know what it feels like to encounter people who think we are disingenuous or part of a corrupt system.
I know how little I know about the personal politics of everyone I’ve ever sat in a poll station with.
I know what it feels like to do small, simple tasks over and over again — take the ID, scan it, print the ballot, direct it to the machine — and that I have to remind myself again and again that those small actions lead to big ones.
I know this work will challenge my patience and my nervous system, but I also know that I’ll get to interact with hundreds of other people whose patience and nervous system are also being challenged this week.
Maybe if I can show up with bells on (and every ounce of optimism I can muster), they can, too.
Until next week,
Addie
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Part 1
Confessions of a first-time poll worker
Originally published: Nov 5, 2021
I worked the polls for the first time on Tuesday.
It was a relatively small election in terms of what was on the ballot, but all voting feel important when you’re the one setting up the voting stations.
When my alarm went off at 5 a.m., I headed downtown to set up a polling station and participate in democracy in a very new way.
Millions of Americans work the polls anytime there’s a vote, but this was the first time I was on the other side of the check-in machine, handing out stickers and scanning driver’s licenses.
From propositions and presidents, elections cover a lot more ground than I thought they did when I was a kid and thought that we only voted for people running for elected office. I didn’t realize that voters were also asked to weigh in on questions, such as whether they should people be allowed to visit nursing homes, even in the middle of a pandemic.
As a member of the media, I have always worked on Election Day during the past 16 years I’ve lived in Austin, but this year, I worked and saw the election from a totally different perspective.
The best part of working this Election Day was meeting the people I worked with all day. There was Becky, the founder of Democrasexy who compares Election Day to Christmas, and Sarah, a mom from Midland who recently moved to Austin and whose only election experience was as a poll watcher at a school board election.
The fourth member of our merry band was Gary, a longtime Austinite whose wife brought him lunch from the Soup Peddler midday.
It turns out that Gary was a “soupie” when David Ansel first started his soup-by-bike operation. That was one of many stories we all traded over the course of the surprisingly pleasant and laid-back day.
Voters came in a slow but steady stream until lunchtime, when the pace noticeably picked up. When we had downtime, we’d talk about the lives that led us to this moment sitting in the same room together for anywhere from seven to 14 hours together.
Having kids, where we grew up, what we love about Austin, what we miss.
Getting along so well with your new poll worker friends was such an unexpected perk of the day. It topped finding out that I’d actually get paid to be there. (I thought it was a volunteer gig when I signed up, but it pays $22 an hour.)
It was nice to be able to talk with folks in a neutral, civic, and civil space, where none of us were explicit about our political leanings, but we shared stories that revealed our values and even our vulnerabilities.
It was almost like we were sharing stories around a campfire with mixed company. Nobody wants to start a debate, but everybody wants to keep an interesting and perhaps even meaningful conversation going.
Checking in voters all day was repetitive but also entertaining. We had people come in on their way to or from a workout, lots of couples, at least one TV actor, and a first-time voter (we clapped).
Each interaction was its own little treasure.
A couple of folks asked me how I was doing after the Statesman, which felt nice, but what felt really nice was being out and about, engaging in my community in a new way.
I’m already looking forward to the next 5 a.m. Election Day alarm.
Part 2
Broken car windows on voting day almost broke my spirit. Then the skunk walked by.
Originally published: Nov 10, 2023
Earlier this week, I was working the polls on Election Day with a handful of women, three of whom were sweet retired ladies who, like me, were there to do something for their community.
And then their cars got broken into.
On Tuesday, we spent 14 hours, from before dawn until after sunset, processing about 250 voters at a church in North Austin. When we closed up the polling station that night, two of my co-workers walked into the parking lot and found that someone had smashed several of their car windows to pieces.
As soon as they discovered the shattered glass, the rest of us gathered around to give them whatever support we could. We were all in disbelief that the universe had rewarded their good deed with an unthinkable one.
In a surreal twist, at that moment, a skunk walked by, not 20 feet away.
What a weird feeling: To swing from the tired satisfaction of a long day of good ol' American poll working to feeling totally dejected about the state of society and hope for the future.
Neither of these women had anything of value in their car, but the violation of their personal space rattled all of us.
This is the fourth or fifth election I have worked since fall of 2021, when I’d just left the newspaper and was embarking on a new career.
Back then, I worked the poll as a way to make extra cash and get out into the community. Fast forward two years, and I’m grateful to have enough gigs that I don’t feel like I *have* to work the election, but it’s a job that needs to get done, and I’m still happy for opportunities to be of service in my community.
I’ve had tense interactions at the polls before, but nothing that escalated my adrenaline like this.
I don’t think these cars were targeted because of what we were doing, but my heart sinks to know that this kind of petty theft is going on all the time, no matter what part of the country you live in.
This isn’t a big city issue. This isn’t a political issue. This is just something that happens for all kinds of socio-economic or mental health reasons that don’t make much sense to those of us who don’t partake in theft and vandalism.
We face so much violence these days, from the trivial to the devastating, and our nervous systems are doing the best they can to regulate. We are getting both tougher and more frazzled, especially over these past few weeks with the terrible news out of Gaza and the related hate crimes happening as people take out their pain on other people.
I was so, so mad at that skunk.
And then I laughed at myself when I realized that I’d made this little black-and-white creature into one of “the bad guys.”
Maybe I needed to pause my black-and-white thinking in the first place.
Can I separate the crime from the criminal? The art from the artist? The voter from their politics?
I don’t know what made someone break into those cars or the circumstances that led them to do the thing they know is wrong. Just like I won’t completely understand why people vote the way they do.
Living through these past two presidential cycles has been a roller coaster of emotions I’ve never experienced before.
But working elections challenges my own political assumptions that I know what is best for this country or even this community.
I’ve had to find new ways of coping with the news, my own reactionary activism and all the opinions that people have about what’s going on in Washington (or the state legislature or the Middle East), including my own.
All of this learning and un-learning is both challenging, invigorating and humbling. The more I know, the less I understand. The more I understand, the less I know.
It’s a contradiction that, with time, gives me the ability to look at situations like this Election Day break-in with a new perspective.
I was feeling disheartened by the whole situation, but over the past few days, I’ve remembered what I know about not knowing. Not everything is going to make sense, and that’s OK.
The world is not fair. The future is uncertain. The only constant is change. Beware the binary. Things are never as black-and-white as they seem.
When I returned to the church today to pick up my Meals on Wheels, I saw that the glass had been mostly cleaned up.
There were still a few remnants, though.
And I’m sure that skunk is somewhere.
Loved this post, Addie!