I was an election judge at my local precinct on Tuesday, which was really a neat experience. My wife was there with me too, so that made it that much more fun. We had to be there no later than 6 AM and were instructed we would not be leaving until at least an hour after the polls closed at 8 PM.
You are not allowed to leave the polling place at all, so you need to bring all the food/drinks with you that you’ll need. Fortunately, my father stopped by with breakfast and our friend Tim came by with an early dinner. This was very kind of them and helped us out a lot.
It was an extremely busy day and we were told as we arrived, “Welcome to the most organized disorganized day of your life!” As anyone who went out and voted would know, there were several types of judges.
There were judges at the tables who confirmed your identity, gave you a plastic card and a paper card that you signed. This is where Amy was, so she was well rested from sitting all day! There were provisional judges who helped you vote if your identity could not be easily confirmed, you were in the wrong precinct or you had just recently registered to vote. Basically if there were any problems you went to them, because your ballot was going to be more carefully reviewed before it counted. There were chief judges, one from each party, that were there to oversee everything and deal with any big problems. Then there were machine judges that were there to help you actually vote on the machine, control the flow of traffic to the machines and make sure there was no machine tampering. This is where I was and thus standing and running all day long.
Despite being extremely tired at the end of the night, I had a lot of fun. I got to meet a lot of people and hopefully make their experience a little easier and pleasant. Since we were at our own voting precinct, I saw many of my neighbors and friends. With each person I helped, I made sure I was extremely courteous; asking them how they were and how their day was going.
What I thought was going to be the most challenging part of my day, was no problem at all. As an election judge, you are not allowed to share your party affiliation nor are you allowed to share any political opinions. Anyone who reads my blog can see that I have no shortage of political opinions. But a strange and really heart changing thing occurred to me there.
No matter your party affiliation, no matter who you voted for, you are still a person with hopes, dreams and feelings. Now it’s not that I didn’t know this before, but being confronted with these people in the context of them casting a deciding vote one way or another, I could see their humanity. This is something that tends to be glossed over on talk radio and ignored at times. The issue is what is important. The stance on the issue is what is important. The reasons and the truth behind the stance on the issue is what is important. There is not enough focus on the humanity of the people who hold those truths to be valid. Major media sources do the same thing, because they have an agenda to put forth as well. They just don’t admit they have an agenda.
The point that I am making is that I thoroughly enjoyed getting out there and meeting all sorts of people and helping them regardless of their party affiliation. I was excited to be a part of our great political process and look forward to being there again in two years. You actually get paid for being there too, but I don’t even want the money. A lady we were working with said, “Ya know it only works out to about 3 dollars an hour for doing this.” My response was that I was surprised to find out you got paid at all and looked at it as an opportunity for community service and civic duty. She thought I was crazy for saying that, but as Amy pointed out to me later, she is working for $3 dollars an hour, who’s crazier?!
All in all it was a great day, our precinct voted for Bush and I had an immense sense of calm over the election. This was before finding out our precincts results, not hearing about any news all day and just giving it all over the Lord. Our God is an awesome God indeed!
Posted by price at November 5, 2004 10:39 AMKudo's to you and your wife for helping out on one of the most imporatant days of the year!
Posted by: aishel at November 5, 2004 02:41 PM