Day 225…
I just got word that I passed my Election Polling Worker test last Saturday, so I am officially able to work for the next year.
It was an open-book test - they included the page number where the answer to the question could be found in the actual question. It really was designed to see if people could follow instructions rather than retain information. Each task, on the day, comes with a check list and they really want you to follow that list in order and do everything properly.
While the test was ridiculously easy in that regard, I am sure that many people just answered the questions without looking them up and got some of them wrong. Those are the people that they want to be able to cull out of the pool.
At the moment, I’m not assigned anywhere. I think that there has been a surge in people applying for the positions, so I’m not surprised.
The training session was interesting. There were things that now seem obvious about the whole process that I had never realized before.
When you walk into a polling place in New York, there is an information desk when you arrive. You then go to the desk of your specific district.
The old days of the people in your district looking up your name and signature in those huge, thick books are gone. Instead of the books, those people will have an iPad.
All registered voters have received, in the mail, voter ID cards with a bar code on them. The problem is that the mailing looks a bit like junk mail. I realized that I had received mine but I must have just tossed it on the to-do-later pile. After the class, I went home and sure enough, there it was.
When you go in to vote, you can flash that card, or the key chain fob also included, and the system will recognize you and bring up your information immediately. If you don’t have the card, your name can be entered manually, and your information accessed that way.
At every district’s table there are two people sitting there - one checking your name and one handing you your ballot. One of those people will be a registered Republican and the other will be a registered Democrat. Over the course of the days I work, I would work out with my Republican counterpart which of us would do what. Every couple of hours we are meant to change which task we are doing.
New York City is heavily Democratically inclined, so I am guessing that that is why I haven’t been assigned anywhere yet. They are probably short of Republicans at this point.
There are a lot of checks and balances in place throughout the day. We are not allowed to ask anybody for an ID unless the system specifically prompts us to. We are not allowed to deny anyone the right to vote.
There are issues that might invalidate a vote but when you go into vote, you will vote. You may get sent to a different polling place, but you will still be able to cast a vote on the day.
If the system identifies an issue, you will be given an affidavit ballot. That ballot will be adjudicated on a case by case basis. Judges will be on call all day to decide whether an individual ballot is legal or not. Some cases may need to be decided later on.
All sorts of things can occur to trigger an issue. People’s names change. Their addresses change. None of it ultimately matters. If you are registered, you will be able to vote. Nobody present in the polling station will be the final word on your status.
Most any issue that arises in a particular district will be attended to by two people - a Republican and a Democrat. Those teams of two will keep track of unused ballots, secure the used ballots, and basically just ensure that the voting continues smoothly and fairly.
The polls will close at 9pm. As long as you are on the line by 9pm, you will still be able to get in to vote. We’ve been warned that as workers we could be there until the wee hours of the morning. Nothing will start to close until the last person on that line has cast their ballot.
At the end of the day, when all the ballots are officially sealed into ballot boxes and accounted for, they get turned over to a police officer who takes them back to the station house.
This is something that was absolutely news to me. It is the police who tabulate the votes and report them in. That’s what they are talking about when they say that a certain percentage of precincts have reported in. They are referring to police precincts.
Perhaps that information is obvious to everyone else and I just never put it together, but I found it a bit shocking. All day long everything in the polling place is designed to be done in as bipartisan way as possible and then all of the results get placed in the hands of people who may be strongly biased in one direction or another.
There are printouts from the ballot machines that indicate how many people voted for a specific candidate so it’s not like a specific precinct could just fabricate the results without it being discovered. It, nonetheless, seems like a somewhat potentially problematic step in the process to me, I have to say.
As I am sure everybody knows, we aren’t directly electing the President and the Vice President, we are, instead, electing a delegate to the Electoral College, who, then in turn, elects them. That delegate is meant to then cast their vote in a way that supports who the majority of us in our district chose.
In the United States, there are 538 delegates appointed to the College. A candidate needs 270 of those votes to win.
In 48 of the nation’s states and in Washington D.C., whichever side gets the most votes gets all of the electoral votes from that state.
In Maine and Nebraska, however, only two of the total number of Electoral College delegates need to vote with the majority in the state. The remainder pledge according to the majority winner in their particular district so the votes in those two states could be split. There are so-called faithless electors who end up voting contrary to what the majority has decided. Many, but by no means all, states have legislation to try to prevent this.
None of the 14 United States territories have any delegates to the Electoral College at all. American citizens who are from Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands or the others are not allowed to vote in Presidential elections.
One of the most contentious issues of the institution of the Electoral College is that the number of delegates each state has is determined by a variety of factors, not just by population. A delegate from rural Montana could represent a few thousand people whereas a delegate from New York could represent hundreds of thousands of voters. That means that an individual’s vote in Montana potentially carries far more weight, comparatively, than an individual’s vote in New York City.
In 2016, 3 million more people voted for Hillary Clinton than voted for the President. The President, however, received more Electoral College votes than she did so he won the election. The same thing happened in 2000. Al Gore received more popular votes, but G.W. Bush won the College.
The Republicans have spent decades gerrymandering the election districts in their favor. I don’t have the slightest idea why Democrats have never tried to do the same. That manipulation of districts has meant that the Republican candidate has won the national election at least twice so far despite their opponent getting more of the popular vote.
The entire election usually comes down to the Electoral votes in a few pivotal states - Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania and a few others. Candidates end up concentrating on those districts and ignoring some of the others.
All of this is why, these days, all anyone is talking about on the news is who is ahead and who is behind in those states. All of the talking heads try to piece together how each candidate might achieve the needed 270 votes.
It is like listening to a whole bunch of people tediously argue about an upcoming sports season.
It is thought that when the Russians interfered in the last election that they concentrated their meddling in some of those key Electoral College states. Ohio was a likely target.
John Ratcliffe, the Director of National Intelligence announced yesterday that both Russia and Iran have already begun to interfere in our upcoming election. Both have obtained voter registration information that they can possibly use to target groups of people.
Ratcliffe outlined how Iran, posing as the Proud Boys terrorist cell, has already been caught sending out intimidating emails to potential voters telling them to vote for the President or else. They have also circulated a video that alleges wide-spread voter fraud that is patently false.
Ratcliffe, who is a former Republican Congressman and an appointee of the President’s, claims that these emails are harming the President.
After his news conference, Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee, tweeted "DO NOT listen to Ratcliffe. Partisan hack… TO CLARIFY: These election interference operations are clearly not meant to harm President Trump."
The fact that Ratcliffe is delving deeply into Iran and not into Russia is extremely telling. Like everything else out of this Administration, it is a diversion.
He spent most of his announcement talking about Iran when he should have spent most of it talking about Russia. Concentrating of Russia, however, is not politically expedient for this President who, for whatever reason, appears to have some extremely strong ties with them. Russia very likely got him elected in 2016 and it may do the same, next month.
Our voting process is deeply flawed. It needs a major overhaul.
One person - one vote is the only fair way to choose who leads us. The millions of us who live in New York should not have a lesser say in how we are governed than the mere thousands in Montana do.
It is likely time for the Electoral College to go.
There should also be Federal Legislation in place to govern Federal elections. Giving individual states the right to decide how their citizens vote creates 51 different ways to cast ballots. Many states, particularly those that lean to the right, continually try to keep people from voting. Traditionally, the more people who vote, the worse the Republicans do.
I hope that I get assigned to a polling station on November 3rd, although it is certainly possible that I won’t.
Early voting beings on Saturday in New York. I will likely try and get in on Sunday or Monday. I’ll figure out with Michael when a good day for us to go in together might be.
There are so many places throughout the world where people do not have a say in the way their countries are run.
We do.
If this Administration had its way, that right would be taken away from us as well. This President spends so much of his time in speaking to the American people sowing discord and distrust about as many aspects of this upcoming election as he can.
Undercutting our process that way is criminal. He needs to be held accountable for it. He, and his enablers, need to be voted out while they still can be.
It is not a given that we will always be allowed to vote. We need to continue to fight to retain that right for as long as we can.
How do we fight? We join the 41 million Americans who have already cast their ballots.
We vote.
However long it takes. However wet we get while we wait on line to get in. However tired and hungry we are.
We vote.
And then, and only then, will we be able to change things for the better.
❤️the police tabulate the votes?!!!.....
I am voting anyway
bravo for you going through with working as an election poll worker
I didn’t follow through after an incredibly unpleasant experience as a Census Enumerator
I will contribute to my country by voting and keeping my dreams alive
You help do that for me
❤️