Debriefing from a New Poll Worker
NON-FICTION - I do solemnly swear.
As of April 2, 2024, my wife and I have joined the ranks of our local election poll workers with first rights to the stories thereof. Before I describe a couple of the more noteworthy experiences, let’s talk about the small hoops we had to jump through for the opportunity to participate in this very important process.
Early last month my wife, two other locals, and I took the two-hour long training session under our city clerk. As registered voters, that city official knew which political party we represented, and it became quite obvious from the questions that the two guys asked that they were from the opposing party. This was consistent with the balance the election officials strive for in their “election inspectors.”
Over the course of twelve pages of handouts and maybe fifty slides, it became abundantly clear that the election process is extremely well thought out. Systems of checks, balances, and redundancy have evolved to the point where undetected election fraud is extremely rare. Many scenarios were presented in which typically unintentional mistakes are made. We were then cautioned as to how to minimize the likelihood that they would occur. And then finally, we were educated as to how the system snags those “mistakes” whether intentional or not.
I followed up our class with my own on-line search for actual convictions for election fraud here in my home state, though it was relatively fruitless. According to “Wisconsin Watch,” - From 2012-2022, “Wisconsin district attorneys brought fewer than 200 cases, the equivalent of 0.0006% of votes cast — with a voter's probation status as the most-common reason.” Contrary to disinformation widely disseminated, actual intentional election fraud cases, leading to prosecution, probably numbered less than a hundred over those ten years.
Searching for convictions for fraud since 2022, the most noteworthy was Kimberly Zapata, the former deputy director of the Milwaukee Election Commission. She was found guilty of misconduct in public office, a felony, after she admitted to using fake names to request military absentee ballots on her work laptop in 2022. Zapata then sent those ballots to the home of Republican state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, who was promoting false theories about election fraud.
There were three additional cases of voter fraud in Wisconsin for which there were convictions in 2023 - amassing a total of three unsuccessful bogus votes cast.
Highlights from one new poll worker’s first day.
Though there were a couple minor “incidents,” my experience was more like the fleshing out of a Norman Rockwell painting than it was disturbing in any way. Admittedly, this coming November’s presidential election has the potential to be a little more heated, but hopefully we’ll be surprised in a good way.
Speaking of heated, though it was near freezing, and there was a steady rain, the conversational tones never got heated and the turnout for this election cycle was great. Well, there was one exception. There was a solitary sixtyish year-old man who got bent out of shape when he realized we had three different color ballots. There were many people who had previously asked - “why the three different colors,” but this guy sneered when he said it!
As I’d done a number of times before, I explained that there were three different districts in our town and the color ballots are specific to each district and their respective alderman candidates. He said nothing but did storm off.
My memories of this uneventful day will include the elderly woman who proudly showed off the really loud blouse she’d bought on a whim last year. She finally had a special occasion to wear it. Not far behind her was another older woman who came in with a toy poodle who pranced around in all of his finery. You’d think the way he was spinning around on his hind legs that he was the security detail for the event. BTW, there was none present except him.
It was encouraging to see new voters there with their presumed parents - looking just a little nervous, but obviously proud to be doing the right thing. As is so often the case, the majority of the people there had been voting in that same building for decades, seeing their neighbors, the grocery store clerks, the folks from their churches, and the waitress from their favorite restaurant. And we can’t forget the fireman.
I ran into one that I just might remember. I’d barely noticed the middle-aged guy approaching with his red jacket and town insignia. My line was growing, and I had just hunkered down trying to tear through some heavy-duty plastic around the next bundle of ballots when I noticed a large knife in my peripheral vision. He kindly offered to pierce through the plastic, and he helped us get on our way again.
Though it might not be for everyone, I really enjoyed watching and interacting with people just being neighborly and doing what they think is best for our country. We hear about all of the anger and division - “out there,” but only one unhappy guy out of the six or seven hundred that I saw suggests that there’s way less vitriol than we might expect.
And then there’s the elderly lady with the chewing gum. She was having a great animated conversation with my wife only five feet away when she accidently spit the wad of chewing gum out. It landed on my wife’s hand and then plopped onto the ballot she was initialing. The woman was unfortunately mortified, as she plunked the gum back into her mouth. As it turns out, she “never” chews gum but had gotten some to hopefully help stifle a dry cough she’d just acquired. We reassured her it was no problem as she headed off to her booth.
And we were gifted with an amusing visual to remind us of the fun we had on our first day as poll workers.
I really appreciate the observation that perhaps the anger and division we hear so much about is not so prevalent, that perhaps most of us do indeed strive to be neighborly and understanding. Easy to forget in today's online climate!!
Such a wholesome way of people watching! Very sweet observations.