Member-only story
Day 1 as a Poll Worker…
The day I turned 10,000 years old.
After completing a three-hour online training session, and a three-hour in-person training session, as well as being offered a variety of non-mandatory, but highly encouraged, online supporting training courses, I’ve begun my service as a county election poll worker! (Cue the half-hearted applause.) Much like every part of local government, no one cares that this is incredibly important, incredibly complicated, and incredibly dull.
I’m in California which if you’ve read anything I’ve written, is about as obvious as saying cats are plotting a takeover of the Earth. Duh. California polling centers are open for four days. My service will be from Saturday through Tuesday. The shortest day is 9:00AM to 8:00PM and the longest day is 6:00AM to 9:00PM, however, if there are voters still in line, the center has to stay open until they are finished. Having worked in film and TV production, these are standard days for me, but these are LONG days no matter how you slice it.
Though most of this day was unremarkable, I cannot understand how and why any state would handle voting differently. Giving citizens the option to vote by mail should be MANDATORY and having ample polling centers open on weekends and weekdays seems like a no-brainer. But I guess that’s only if you are super hot for free and fair elections.
I was most curious about who my fellow poll workers would be. Of the 11 of us (there were 13 scheduled but people are expected not to show up), two are high schoolers, two are non-government employees (me), and everyone else is a county employee working overtime. Everyone is nice and we all seem to be on the same page about making sure we don’t mess this up. It’s amazing how divvying up lunch breaks can bring a group of strangers together.
The teenagers are clearly the frontrunners in understanding everything better than the rest of us — show-offs. If I saw these two teens at the mall, not for the biggest lotto jackpot in the world would I have guessed that they would give a hoot about L.A.’s next mayor. They have nose rings, dark hoodies, dirty Converse, haircuts they will both desperately regret in 10 years, and goddamnit, I love them. They are the fucking best.