Jan 23, 2011 0
Many people think that relativity is some obscure science concept that is only important to academics and nerds like myself, when, in fact, relativity is important on a daily basis. GPS? Without taking relativity into account, they’d be wildly inaccurate on the order of kilometers per day. And recently there was a new bit of science done that shows it’s important in another place: your car battery!
Nov 6, 2010 1
Aaaaaa! The long moribund blog lives! I thought I’d write down some of my thoughts and experiences from this last Tuesday…Election Day. Why? Well, ol’ Matt was an Election Official for Fairfax County. It’s something I’ve always thought about doing, civic duty and all, so this time I decided to bite the bullet and do it.
First, when you sign up, you get to go to a training course a month or two before the election. There you get a crash course in being an official. It’s a lot of information coming at you. In the end, I took away two things. First, a packet of information I read a few times before the big day, and second, “When in doubt, ask the Chief.” The latter dictum ended up being the credo for Election Day.
Speaking of, soon enough comes Election Day. In Fairfax County, the polls are open from 6 am to 7 pm. Since we have to set up the machines and get ready, you report to the polling place at 5 am. Which means waking up around 3:30, 4…early even for this early bird. Also, once you are at the polling place and sworn in, you cannot leave. Period. So that means you bring food and have a long day ahead of you.
So, on Tuesday, I got to the middle school I’d be working at at 4:45 am and met our Chief. The Chief, in what I’m sure will amaze the no one reading this, is the head official and the “boss” for all intents and purposes. After a few minutes, the custodian lets us into the building and we get to work. Like in many polling places at schools, we are in the library and when we get there, I find that the room has already been rearranged by the Chief and Assistant Chief. Nice, no table hauling.
But once in the room, the day begins. First, the oath, before we can touch any election machines or ballots or anything, we are sworn in as election officers. We also get a sweet button! (Sadly, it’s returned at the end of the day…dang it.) After being sworn in, I learn I’m helping the Asst Chief with setting up and opening the WinVote touchscreen machines. This involved a long procedure/checklist. Everything was sealed up and all seals were accounted for and recorded. Then after doing the origami-like manipulations to set them up, we then had to make sure all the machines started at zero. This involved each machine (there were three) printing out a long tape that assures that every ballot issue and race has zero votes before the day begins.
Soon poll opening time approached. In the elections there are essentially three jobs to do. The first I’d be doing is working with the WinVote machine. I was one of the people directing voters to either the machines or to the booths where they could fill out a paper ballot (both are options in Fairfax). If they choose electronic–something about 90% of voters did–then I was one of two people who would take a smartcard and activate the machine.
Once activated, most people have used the touchscreen machines before and power through the ballot (though not always quickly…some read the issues carefully for the first time there). A good portion though aren’t quite comfortable with the tech yet, and it was also my job to help where I could. Usually the Asst Chief who was helping did that and did it well. I helped a few times and was…less good at it. The main problem is that, technically, I have to help the people without actually looking at their ballot; it is a secret ballot after all.
It was also at this point in the day that I was most frustrated. I worked the WinVote machines for about the first five hours. There was a bit of a rush of voters when the polls opened, but since there were two of us working the machines then, it was manageable. Soon, though, the Asst Chief had to be called away. Usually this was when someone who couldn’t come in needed to vote which meant one of the machines had to go out to them in the car. (By the way, never knew this was possible…and it happened 4 or 5 times!) When this happened, or the AC was needed by others because the Chief was busy, well, it is not easy for one person to manage the voting of 90% of everyone coming in.
Gah.
But, I made it. Sure, I cursed my fellow officials at times for not leaping to help as fast as they could, but, eh. Besides, working the machines meant I got to experience the best part of voting from the other side: I gave out The Stickers! Woo!
After 5 or so hours of this, the Chief decided it was a good time to switch up jobs. My next post was working the pollbooks. I was then one of the people that greets you and looks you up in the book to make sure you can vote. It turns out that the pollbooks are probably the most important part of the election. Why? Well, they are the record that shows how many voters came in to vote. When someone comes in, I’d say this person is voter 210 (in A-K) and then cross an X through the number.
At the end of the day, this must match the number of ballots cast. About once an hour (or more if more voters came) the Chief would come to the books to make sure that the count we had matched the ballot count on the machines and the ballot scanner. If they didn’t, his hair got a little whiter. Unfortunately, every so often it wouldn’t match. It took a while each time, but usually we’d track it down to either assigning a duplicate number or skipping one in the book that was X’d out. (Note: I must admit that during my 4 hours on the books, I didn’t mess up. Woo! I mainly thank the Official who showed me the technique she was using.)
It was also while working the polls that I put to use the credo “When in doubt, ask the Chief.” When someone’s name wasn’t in the book, I asked the Chief. When their address didn’t match their ID, I asked the Chief. When someone said they needed to help their relative translate the ballot, I asked the Chief. When a voter didn’t want to present ID, I asked the Chief.
As the day wore on, I moved to the final job, working the paper ballots and the optical scan machine. This was the least stressful job, mainly because there were fewer people choosing paper ballots. It was cool watching that scanner take the ballots. Shooop! And I got to give out The Stickers again!
Finally, 6:45 came around and the Chief announced “The polls will close in 15 minutes” and then at 7:00, boom!, polls closed. Everyone still in line at that point could vote, and so they did. When all the voters were done, the doors were locked and we then entered the counting phase. As I helped open the WinVote machines, I also helped close them. This involved printing out the results (multiple times) and extracting the wee USB drive with a backup record of the votes. These results were then combined with the paper ballots and the pollbooks consulted to make sure the number of voters equaled the number of ballots. And they did! When all was done, I had the fun job of calling in our precinct’s results to the County Election Board. So, if you saw the results for Fairfax County, my voice reported some of those.
After a bit more time rearranging the tables so the library was returned to library spec, we were able to leave…at 8:50 pm. That is indeed a 16-hour day. A long exhausting 16-hour day. But it was worth it because it was for voting!
Jul 31, 2010 0
This post gets the sometimes-often disclaimer of “whiny, long, etc.” So, proceed after the cut if you dare…
