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Showing posts from November, 2020

Reflections on working as an election judge

I don't know how to start with this. There are a number of isolated moments that stand out in my mind. Some are poignant, like the woman who, upon hearing we couldn't find her registration in the computer, shook her head and said, her quiet frustration palpable, "I just won't vote, then." She put her driver's license away and calmly walked out of the room. We had already told her about the Voter Verification Hotline, but she didn't seem all that interested in waiting on hold for what promised to be a very long time. So she left without casting her ballot. I tend to personalize negative outcomes in a way that isn't warranted (my wife can attest to this), so I had to acknowledge, then dismiss, the sinking feeling that the situation was somehow my fault. Some moments were joyful, in that primitive "caveman starts fire" sense, like when our one troublesome ePollbook (the custom laptop builds used to check in voters) finally connected to th...