My Election Day Experience

On Tuesday November 5, 2024 I had my first experience as a poll worker.

Since I retired on January 1, 2024 I had time to be a poll worker without having to take time off of work to get it done. I figured it was time for me to step up and do my part. I’ve seen many others perform this duty over the years and I’ve always been one to thank all the poll workers that I came in contact with regardless of what poll station task they were doing.

I worked the early schedule. I arrived at 6am and left at 2pm. My duty on Tuesday was the mundane task of being a greeter as voters entered the polling place. I found out whether they were already registered or an unregistered voter and directed them to the appropriate station when the stations were available. Some rather arrogant people wanted to walk in and wanted to do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, it was my job to keep the incoming line orderly.

I set my mind before anyone arrived that I was going to be an energetic smiling greeter that met the voters in their space as they came in and didn’t force them to wander over to my space, that seemed to be a good choice. Those that entered with a scowl on their face seemed to respond positively to me greeting them in a very positive manner, thanking them all for showing up to vote. It was very are that I had to be relatively forceful to get someone to follow instructions. In general most people were in a good mood, wanted to make their voting voice heard, and came and went without incident.

For the entire eight hour shift I didn’t sit. I slowly walked around the area close to the door so I wouldn’t miss voters as they entered. I walked about two miles in the moderate space I had available.

After my eight hour shift as a greeter was over, I trained the person doing the greeter job and headed home to relax for a while before I went back. Then I got in line with other voters to cast my votes.

I had no idea how tired I was after my shift and being on my feet the entire time until I did some unwinding reading and helped my wife with the puzzle she was working on. then the day was catching up with me. I sat down in my lounge chair and I fell asleep for about forty-five minutes.

While at the polling place I hadn’t eaten lunch but I did have a small granola snack late morning and a couple of bottles of water, so after I awoke from my brief nap I had an early dinner. Then I hung out around the house, helping my wife with her puzzle, caught up on the news, did some reading, and did some design work for something I’m making for my motorcycle. At around 7:45pm I headed back tot he polling place and started the tear-down and counting shift.

We disassembled and collapsed all the portable voting isolation stands and set up some tables that were going to be used for counting and sorting all the paper ballots that had been filled out by election day voters.

The process for counting the paper ballots was specific. Everything that is done is always rechecked by another person. There was six of us for our task. First turn all the ballots the same direction. Make stacks of twenty-five ballots. Double count absolutely everything with a second person to verify. I emphasized that everyone should take their time to count each stack of twenty-five because it will take less time to do it right the first time than it will to have to recount them multiple times it the numbers don’t match for the count. Each stack of twenty-five was counted by two people. After the stacks of twenty-five ballots were stacked, we used them to make stacks of one hundred ballots. Then we did a physical count of those ballots and if the number didn’t match the number on the ballot reading machine exactly then they all had to be counted again and again until the error was found. Luckily our count matched exactly to first time, no recounting for this step was needed. It’s my understanding that sometimes they have to recount a few times to get it right.

Next we had to find all of the ballots that had “Write In” either marked or a name filled in. That meant we had to look at absolutely every ballot and every spot on each ballot that had the possibility of a “Write In”, there were nine spots. Votes can write the strangest things in “Write In” space, one voter wrote in “Donald Trump” for our local District Attorney, what a moron. Another chose to write in Donald Trump in the “Write In” field for President instead of choosing the spot that was right there for Donald Trump, the only reason I could think of for that was the voter must have thought that the ballot reading machine was going to switch his Trump vote to Harris. All of the “Write In” votes were found and the counts matched, first time again. We were on a roll!

Next we did a sort in case a recount was ordered for the Presidential race.

We sorted into three stacks, Harris, Trump, and other. Again stacks of twenty-five, then stacks of one hundred, and then we counted. Again the count had to match the ballot reading machine exactly. Unfortunately the Harris stack was off by one. We knew that one stack of twenty-five had to have twenty-six. With the way we separated and stacked everything it only took a few minutes for the six of us to find the stack that had an extra ballot in it. That stack was recounted by a couple of people and then we recounted the Harris ballots and the number matched.

Next we had to bundle the pre-sorted ballots and put them in chain of custody bags, seal them, and sign them. The counting task for the election day ballots was complete.

The counting of all the early voting and absentee ballots was still ongoing but was nearing completion. In our village 60% of registered voters voted early. We registered a few hundred new voters throughout the day.

In the end, our village had somewhere in the mid ninety percentile of registered votes that voted in this election. I think that’s an outstanding turnout. Now if we could just get all the eligible voters to get off their butts and vote too, I’d like to see over ninety percent of eligible voters vote in every election.

Lastly, we put away all the tables and chairs that were no longer being used and cleaned up the area. After that the chief of the polling place let those that no longer were occupied with tasks to go home. I left at 10:15pm.

Since I got done early from my counting shift, instead of heading home I went to my sister’s election day watch party. She was running for State of Wisconsin Assembly, unfortunately she didn’t win. The Democrats stacked the deck against Republicans with some redistricting and the area Republican Party really didn’t want to invest in a race what was already stacked against them. My sister tried to do the door-to-door campaign with between three and five people but really couldn’t canvas the entire district and her opponent had upwards of fifteen people in each town, there are dozens of towns, and they likely knocked on every door in the district. Regardless of the whole campaign being stacked against her and this was her first run for State of Wisconsin office, she got a respectable number of votes which hopefully will ring someone’s bell in the area Republican Party to help her the next time she runs.

That’s the first political election watch party I’ve ever been to. It was exactly what I expected from a County Republican Party watch party, the TV’s were way too loud, every time a state was called for Trump there was lots of hooping, hollering, and clapping; however, whenever there was a state called for Harris the room filled with boo’s, which really annoyed me.

I did run into a couple of people from my Breakfast Buddies bunch that meets a few times a month at a nice little diner for food and conversation about recent events in politics, I’m sure it will be a lively group tomorrow morning. I’m looking forward to tomorrow morning.