Our Day As Poll Workers

We were singing that one Simple Minds song as we drove away from South Hills Middle School on Tuesday night. Something about all of us getting in our cars and going our separate ways after such a draining day made it feel like the end of The Breakfast Club. Oh, and the other reason it felt like The Breakfast Club was because Kurt had the biggest baddest packed lunch you've ever seen, just like Andy's.

It was such a long day - 5:30 am to 9:00 pm - and that doesn't even include the couple of hours we had put in on Monday night helping to get everything ready. I actually don't think it would've been that bad, but neither Chris nor I slept very well the night before so we did hit a couple walls during the day. But it was seriously so cool. We got to meet tons of people, for one thing, and get them checked in so they could vote; and for another thing, if you ever find yourself in need of someone who knows how to put up, break down, and work a polling location, well now you know who to call.

Our group of poll workers was terrific. Chris and I actually made up a song about the dynamic of the group. It goes, "So many chiefs, not enough Indians;" we'll sing it for you some time. Seriously, nearly everyone in our group of 9 workers wanted to be in charge, whether it was deciding the correct pronunciation of DeJesus (some voter's last name) or where to hang the sample ballots posters. But let's face it, there was only one Poll Manager, and that was Janet.We really only had one complaint about Janet, our fearless leader, and that was that she just couldn't bring herself to leave her screaming companion behind for the day. I'm talking about the shiny red guy on her chin. OK, that was mean, but Chris and I got some hearty laughs about it because it reminded us of that talking stain commercial; we just couldn't pay total attention to everything she said. No seriously, she was great.

Janet's biggest competitor for being in charge was Phil, the voting machine technician and general poll-worker-know-it-all.
The two receiving tables consisted of me (Poll Book Judge), Chris (Receiving Judge), and Heather (Ballot Judge) at our table, and Peggy (Ballot Judge), Sue (Receiving Judge), and Darlene (Poll Book Judge) at the other table. Heather knew just about everyone who came in the door; I know she knew them because I heard her say, "I know him," about 400 times throughout the day. Peggy is a poll worker veteran of about 40 years, and she gave us several brief narratives about how things have changed over the years. Darlene was quiet and sweet. And Sue was quite a pistol. A few hours into the day Chris discovered that we had processed a lot more people than the ladies at the other table. This spurred him on, and he had a mission to basically blow them out of the water for the rest of the day. They caught on after a while, and a friendly competition ensued. Chris and Sue were trash-talking each other and seriously yelling at unsuspecting voters to come to their respective tables. It didn't get confusing for the voters or old for me at all. Oh, and another fun game we played was keeping a tally of how many times voters asked a variation of this question: Do I just sign the book upside down? Yes, you do. And the grand total was somewhere around 60.
Here's Kurt, the aforementioned marathon eater. He was our Provisional Judge for the day, and he kept pretty darn busy. But that didn't stop him from eating a hoagie the size of your mom's head, a virtual bucket of salad, an orange, an apple, and a banana, 2 64-ounce bottles of Gatorade, and a small Korean family. We would catch him taking huge bites of his food when a patron of his glanced away for a second. He must have the metabolism of a gerbil (I don't actually know if gerbils have high metabolisms, but you know what I mean).
Not included in our team of 9, but welcome additions to our long day were the delightful Marcus Hamblin, our resident pollster representing the Utah Democratic Party......and Rover Cleveland. OK, we don't actually remember this gentleman's name, but he was our rover so Chris named him Rover Cleveland. Clever huh?
Aside from the long hours of sitting on a hard chair, aside from the monotony of listening to person after person state their last name as well as give you the first 3 or 4 letters of it (Barragan...B A R R...), and aside from having a really sad voter turnout, I loved the day. And I'll do it again, rest assured.