Looking Ahead to Tomorrow's Election Day
Looking Ahead to Tomorrow's Election Day
Since I retired a few months ago, I’m not a fan of working 18-hour days. Unless it is for a good cause, and I found one.
Read, read along as you listen, or just listen to the voiceover.
After moving to a new county this Fall, I decided to make myself available to the County Board of Elections to be an Election Judge for the 2024 Presidential Election. If I lived in a swing state, this could be seen as a real act of courage given all that happened, and is still happening, around the 2020 election.
Maryland is not a swing state though extra efforts are being made to ensure and assure Election Judges and polling places are safe tomorrow. Also, just to clarify, I’m called an “Election Judge,” but I’m not judging anything, I don’t get to make decisions, and I don’t even get a gavel. In Maryland Election Workers are given the title “Election Judges.” At least it sounds important.
Last week I worked Early Voting in a rural community about 15 miles from where I live. My day began at 4:00 AM and didn’t end until my head hit the pillow at 10:00 PM that night. The day was nonstop. I worked all stations in the polling site – checking people in, giving them the correct ballot for their precinct, guiding them to either the Voting Booth or the Ballot Marking Device (BMD), which was a touch screen, or assisting them with casting their ballot via a scanner that received either handwritten ballots or ballots printed by the BMD.
I wasn’t allowed to do any of this, though, until I went through a mandatory 3-to-4-hour training at the Board of Elections office. It was not the most scintillating training, but it was informative. I came away from that experience impressed with how the process of voting was so well designed. It is designed to ensure and assure an accurate count and outcome and, therefore, reduce the risk of both error and fraud. There are checks, double checks, triple checks, and still no Election Judges can leave for the day (or night) until all the numbers align. However, I didn’t really get it until I worked as an Election Judge for Early Voting last week.
By the end of the day (about 9:30 PM), I concluded our election process is an elegant system that is simultaneously extremely complicated and extraordinarily simple, depending on one’s perspective. From the perspective of the voter, it usually takes less than 5 minutes to move from check-in, to receiving your ballot, to voting, and, finally to casting your ballot. On the day I worked last week, over 1,000 people cast their ballots. There was no controversy and no drama. The Election Judges (comprised of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and Unaffiliated voters) worked easily together with good humor. Truly, a good time was had by all. All of this contributed to making the voting experience extremely easy and stress free for people, thereby making it appear to be quite simple. And that could be part of the reason there has been so much controversy over the past few years. It may look too easy to the common voter because they don’t see behind the scenes. They don’t see all of the systems and redundancies that Election Judges see that ensures and assures the integrity of the vote.
I know I didn’t have a clue until I became an Election Judge.
A three-to-four-hour training doesn’t seem like much. However, there is also a 366-page Election Judge manual you are expected to read and keep close by if needed on Election Day. It details everything. I mean, everything. What you can wear, what you do with your cell phone (turn it off), what you can talk about with other judges, how to set up the polling books (which are the only networked devices on the premises because they verify the eligibility of each voter at check in), how to organize the ballots and what to say when you handed a voter their ballot, how to lead people to the Voting Booth or Ballot Marking Device, what to say to them, and where to stand to avoid seeing how they mark their ballot, how interact with voters with a variety of different disabilities to ensure they could participate in voting, how to instruct people on the Ballot Marking Device, and how to help them cast their ballot. And, by the way, at no time are Election Judges allowed to even touch a voter’s ballot once they have received it. It also outlines the Chain of Custody for ballots that have been cast, including Provisional Ballots, and even Spoiled Ballots. Always, judges from two different parties have to observe and sign off on the handling of ballots.
Last night we settled in to watch 60 Minutes as we often do on Sunday at 7:00 PM. The first segment focused on the two Republican officials in Georgia who put their careers and lives on the line to protect the vote there in 2020. As I watched and listened, I realized I now understood more clearly the precautions they were describing. When they spoke of their confidence that the 2024 vote would be secure, I knew they had good reason to say that.
I know there are plenty of people out there who don’t have that confidence. One of them posted under the YouTube link above this comment, “Paper ballots & required voter ID. Is it really that difficult?” This sounds like something I would have said until recently. As I said, ours is an elegant system. To the voters it looks simple and easy. In reality, it is extremely complicated because it needs to be in order to ensure the integrity of our elections.
After my Early Voting experience, I had an idea. If we want the American public to understand how safe and secure our elections are, let’s implement a National Service program in which all voters are required to go through Election Judge training and work in a polling site at least once every five to ten years. I’m not sure it is an idea that will gain any traction, but I’ll put it out there for your consideration anyway. It couldn’t hurt.
Tonight, I will go to the polling place I’ve been assigned to help set up for Election Day tomorrow. Once I get home, I’ll go to bed immediately because my day begins again at 4:00 AM. The polls close at 8:00 PM but, in Maryland, anyone who is in line at 8:00 PM gets to vote, no matter how late.
If you are voting in person tomorrow, notice how easily and quickly you get through the line to cast your vote. Remember, though, that there is a lot of complicated and hard work that goes into making your voting experience so simple.
Thanks for voting and, please, be assured, our election is safe and secure.
New Klaus Haus Productions YouTube Channel is Ready!
The new Klaus Haus Productions Channel on YouTube is ready and S2E17 of Getting to 3rd Space with Lamar and Tom podcast has been posted there. In fact, I’ve started the process of moving our previous episodes from both Season 1 and 2 over to this new site. Just go to the Getting to 3rd Space playlist and you’ll see everything that is there. More will be coming in the next several days.
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