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Re: Election Day Plea from a Poll Worker

guest — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:40:13 GMT

Amen on being nice to poll workers. Below is a cut and paste of a blog post I made a while back titled "My Life as a Poll Worker" It's a little long and somewhat dated because I posted it after the presidential primaries in South Carolina this winter, but I thought as a fellow poll watcher, you might be interested.

For the last several years, my father has worked as a poll worker on election days here in South Carolina. You know, the people who sign you in and take you to the booth on election days. This year they were short some people so Dad browbeat me into working. I worked the two presidential preference primaries, the Democratic Party yesterday and the Republicans the week before. It was a very interesting experience to be on the other side of the table on election day. Here are a few observations.

Be nice to the people working the polls. I now have a much greater appreciation for the folks who work at each election. The polls in our sate are open from 7 to 7. I had to be there by 6:30 AM, and the two ladies working with me were already there then. And of course one of them had picked up the machines the night before. We didn't finish closing the polls, tallying up cleaning up, etc. until about 7:45 PM. There was no real time for lunch, but the two ladies I worked with did bring snacks. For this over 13 hour day, we are going to receive the princely sum of $60. (I am told it just got bumped up from $50 to $60) Now I'm not arguing for a raise, because frankly, most of the people aren't working there for the money, but to do a service to their community, but I am saying that everybody should be real nice to the people working there, because they sure aren't paying them enough to put up with any grief.

People were mostly very nice. South Carolina has developed a reputation for nasty, ugly politics. And considering the Bush-McCain race in 2000 and the Clinton-Obama clash this year, it is understandable why this is so. But I think this nastiness is practiced mostly by the professional political class rather than by regular people. The people I dealt with were almost all very nice and friendly. This was true across party lines. People were patient and good natured with lines and other difficulties that arose, and generally seemed happy to be able to be there and participate in the democratic process. I think working these two elections made me a little less cynical about people and I'd recommend everyone try it sometime.

Republican wake up earlier than Democrats. My precinct ended up with over twice as many Democrats casting ballots than Republicans. (I think this is due to a combination of the demographics of my precinct and the fact the weather was much better yesterday than a week ago.) But I wouldn't have guessed that it was going to turn out that way by 8:30. Republicans also seemed to come by themselves or at most with their spouse. Democrats bought the whole family to vote at once, husband, wife, college age kid, cousin, etc. We did seem to have more voter issues out of the Democrats. Nothing serious, but people at the wrong precinct, address changes, etc. I think this was because we had a lot of new voters and voters who hadn't voted in a while among the Democrats. As someone who usually votes Democratic, let me tell you this is certainly understandable. It's been a long time since a Democratic candidate really excited people, especially in this state.

A perfect election is impossible. There is no way on earth to completely eliminate the possibility for human error or fraud in an election. At least not without a lot better technology, a lot more training for poll workers like me, or both. Like most Democrats, I was appalled by the Florida situation in 2000. Having worked an election now, I'm convinced that any vote put under the microscope afterwards would look screwed up. We did the best we could, but it wasn't like we were doing DNA exams on everybody that came up. There's a balance between making sure everyone is who they say they are and making the process so onerous that people just stay home. And you always will have human error. I had to fill in a bubble next to everyone's name when they came in. (Kind of like the SAT, complete with No. 2 pencils.) I think I did fine, but is it possible that I filled in the wrong bubble in the rush of people? Of course it is.

Local results don't guarantee statewide performance. Huckabee won my precinct on the Republican side, which was consistent with his performance in the county, but not statewide. In fact, Fred Thompson almost took second away from McCain, but not quite. Obama won for the Democrats. His margin was even bigger in my precinct than his statewide margin which was huge itself.

Everyone should do this sometime. It was two very long days, but I'm glad I did it. Anyone who can take the time off from work should try it some time. The two retired ladies I worked with were real sweet and I probably put on weight from the brownies and other snacks they brought. And as I said a little earlier, it made me less cynical about people. So try it if you can.

Re: Your goal finish time and bib number

guest — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:39:35 GMT

Bib number is 13310. My pace will probably be just a few steps ahead of the bus for stragglers. At least I hope. I'll probably be wearing something in Clemson orange with a tiger paw on it. Hopefully my run will go better than our football season has gone this year.

Lurked a lot and didn't post too much, but I've really enjoyed reading the board. Thanks to everyone for all the helpful advice. Thanks,

Mike

Re: Blood donation

guest — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:24:04 GMT

Thanks everybody. I figured the question had been discussed before, but I couldn't figure out how to search for previous threads, so I just went ahead and posted my question. Then, after I posted it, up pops a column on the right called "more like this" with links to a previous thread on the subject.

Sigh. One day I'll get the hang of message boards. Anyway, thanks again.

Mike

Blood donation

guest — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:43:33 GMT

I got a call from the Red Cross the other night about donating blood. I used to give fairly regularly, but I haven't since I started training for the MCM a couple of months ago. Does anybody have any thoughts about the effect donating blood might have on training. If I give one morning, do you think I'd be OK to run the next day or should I take a few days (or even longer) off? Thanks for the input,

Mike

Re: weather conditions for October in DC?

guest — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:38:03 GMT

Hey! I'm from South Carolina, too. The little town of Chester, to be exact. I keep telling myself on these miserably humid mornings that it has got to be cooler and less humid in DC in October. I hope I'm right!

Mike

Re: Great Quotes

guest — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:10:21 GMT

Be good and you will be lonesome.

Mark Twain

Re: Pain/discomfort from running

guest — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:45:58 GMT

Lynx952 wrote:
Thanks for the help, lack of hydration might be the problem.

As for the standing at work, I work in a retail pharmacy the pharmacy is raised two steps above floor level and the bay were the prescriptions are kept is another step higher then that. so per customer i'm going up 6+ stairs a hundred or more times a day or so. As for shoes I can wear whatever kind I want. but mats or moment is out of the question.

Don't underestimate the importance of good shoes at work. I'm on my feet a lot all day and have to wear a suit, so dress shoes that don't feel awful have always been a problem. I finally found a pair if rockports a couple of years ago that looked just like the shoes I usually wore with my suit but had a rubbery bottom that made them much more comfortable. You're in a lot better shape than me since you can basically wear any shoes you want at work. Just shop around. When you compare it, most of us are in our work shoes a lot more than in our running shoes. If I can make it to retirement, I plan for that to change.

Re: MCM list of participants!

guest — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:49:14 GMT

Beverly Salerno wrote:
I am signed up.
I'm TERRIFIED. MCM will be my first marathon and I'm having nightmares about it already.
I'm hoping for 6 1/2 hours, but I really just want to finish without getting lost or dying.

Bev

Finally, in the land of fast runners and Boston qualifiers, someone I can relate to. Mike here, also a first marathon and slow as Christmas.

Seriously, I've been reading this board the last few weeks and it seems like a great group. Lots of helpful advice and encouragement. We can make it!

And, seriously, what's the worst that could happen? You know, I once finished dead last in a race. It was a small town 5k that would only have had 30 or 40 people on a good day. But this day, it poured down rain. There were 9 people that showed up. Eight hard core runners and me. The police car was right behind me the entire time. But I've probably gotten more laughs out of telling that story than any other race I've ever been in. And to make it even stranger, I won my age group. So the only trophy I've ever won for running was a race where I finished dead last.

Good luck and see you in October!

Re: Registration Confirmation--Should I be worried?

guest — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:35:33 GMT

I just checked mine and I'm not in there either, but I did get the email after I registered, So I'm going to chalk it up to some sort of error in the confirmation database for now. Of course, if I'm still not in there ina few days, I'll panic.

Re: Antihistamines and Running

guest — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:08:03 GMT

Claritin has stopped being effective for me, so last year I started using using Zyrtec. I've been fine with it so far, but I may be unusual because I've heard from many others that it makes them drowsy.