An Election Day

I manage a voting location for County Board of Elections which has two separate precincts with two distinctive groups of voters and only one was open on Tuesday. The day is long - beginning before 6:00 AM and ending near 9:00 PM. Occasionally I have a disgruntled, confused or ornery voter, but, on the whole, "my" voters are great!

This time, there were several unique challenges which made the day interesting. We were in a new building at our regular location, but people found us. We managed to assist our first blind voter who had no problem using the equipment with the earphones and keypad. We had only one race on the ballot with only two candidates. We had to check each voter for one of five types of photo ID and had no problems.

While it is not unusual for only one of our two precincts to be voting because of staggered terms for the Districts, the biggest challenge was explaining to the 15% who came that they could not vote. I could not decide if they should be commended for being faithful and loyal voters or if they should be chided for being uneducated and unprepared.

It was an interesting Election Day.

AAB