gekkogecko
02-13-2008, 12:17 PM
The 14-hour (probably more like a 14+3/4, maybe 15-hour, realistically) shift for the polls yesterday turned into a 16+1/4 hour shift. Why?
Because the elections chief for Maryland (one Linda Lamone) decided, on her own, to go to the Anne Arundel circuit court (in the person of Ronald A. Silkworth) to get an emergency injunction to keep the polls open an extra hour and a half because somehow the weather kept people from getting to the polls.
Oh, yeah, there are approximately 2000 registered voters in my particular precinct, of which 943 voted. Four-count them, four-of those votes were cast between the hours of 2000-2130. *And* they were, by federal law, provisional votes, which means technically the state doesn't have to count them at all. Word is however, the board of elections will count them, unless there a further court order not to.
But basically, it came down to the fact that neither Linda Lamone nor Ronald Silkworth were the ones who were trapped in a freakin' *unheated* polling station for an extra long shift. Yes, I do not exaggerate about the unheated aspect: the two chief judges made several complaints to the board of elections about this during the day, and they sent a supervisor out to work with the building maintence person. The two of them ran around the cafeteria of this particular school with a laser pointer, trying to find out if the ceiling vents were actually putting out any air, and a temperature probe to see if the air was actually warm. The fans were running at minimum, which is good, because the story we got from maintenance was that one of the boilers for the school was out.
The warmest spot in the room registered as 62F.
So, the supervisor from the BoE turned out to be a (volunteer?) firefighter, who gave us thermal space blankets and chemical heat packs. About an hour later, building maintence came back with on of those closed-circuit oil radiators, the kind that might be used to heat up one room of your house. This, for a cafeteria for a middle school that is completely open to the hallways to the rest of the school, plus of course it has to fight the fact that the voters, whom we are actually there for, must open the doors to the outside air to get to the polling place.
Sometime during the middle evening, the poor overworked oil heater blew the circuit or itself-it cut out for some reason, and since the switches for the thing were still on when it wasn't, it was probably the circuit. It's a good thing we absolutely insisted that building maintenance plug the thing into a different circuit than the ones that our voting machines and poll books were on.
Other than that, it was a fairly pleasant experience. Every one of the people I was working with was pleasant person to work with: there was absolutely *no* attitude of "you're a horrible person because of your political affiliation". And the efforts to actually assist and explain things to the voters who needed things explained to were all polite, even when nerves were starting to get frayed from the cold (and then, the extended hours). Personally, I only witnessed two acts of belligerence from voters, one being a person who was offended that we provided signs and ballots in spanish. Said voter (I won't even reveal the sex of this person) claimed that in order to be a citizen of this country, one has to be able to reand and speak English. The other was a voter who was offended that, as a registered independent/minor party voter, s/he wasn't allowed to vote for either major party's candidates. I did hear *of* a second person like that, but didn't personally witness it. And there was one person who stated to me his/her offense that the ballots gave a voter a choice of english or spanish, although this particular person kept a calm demeanor about his/her opinion, no belligerence at all displayed.
So, that's about four disgruntled voters out of 943. I kind of like those numbers.
But it's going to be hellacious in the general election. We are already working with a skeleton crew, due to lack of sufficient numbers of election judges. And given that this is the second election that the polls have been extended, and that the extensions have little to no positive effect, I doubt there will be all that many more volunteers for election judges between now and November. And I personally know of two judges who have said that they won't be doing this in November, given the abuse they perceive from the board of elections.
Because the elections chief for Maryland (one Linda Lamone) decided, on her own, to go to the Anne Arundel circuit court (in the person of Ronald A. Silkworth) to get an emergency injunction to keep the polls open an extra hour and a half because somehow the weather kept people from getting to the polls.
Oh, yeah, there are approximately 2000 registered voters in my particular precinct, of which 943 voted. Four-count them, four-of those votes were cast between the hours of 2000-2130. *And* they were, by federal law, provisional votes, which means technically the state doesn't have to count them at all. Word is however, the board of elections will count them, unless there a further court order not to.
But basically, it came down to the fact that neither Linda Lamone nor Ronald Silkworth were the ones who were trapped in a freakin' *unheated* polling station for an extra long shift. Yes, I do not exaggerate about the unheated aspect: the two chief judges made several complaints to the board of elections about this during the day, and they sent a supervisor out to work with the building maintence person. The two of them ran around the cafeteria of this particular school with a laser pointer, trying to find out if the ceiling vents were actually putting out any air, and a temperature probe to see if the air was actually warm. The fans were running at minimum, which is good, because the story we got from maintenance was that one of the boilers for the school was out.
The warmest spot in the room registered as 62F.
So, the supervisor from the BoE turned out to be a (volunteer?) firefighter, who gave us thermal space blankets and chemical heat packs. About an hour later, building maintence came back with on of those closed-circuit oil radiators, the kind that might be used to heat up one room of your house. This, for a cafeteria for a middle school that is completely open to the hallways to the rest of the school, plus of course it has to fight the fact that the voters, whom we are actually there for, must open the doors to the outside air to get to the polling place.
Sometime during the middle evening, the poor overworked oil heater blew the circuit or itself-it cut out for some reason, and since the switches for the thing were still on when it wasn't, it was probably the circuit. It's a good thing we absolutely insisted that building maintenance plug the thing into a different circuit than the ones that our voting machines and poll books were on.
Other than that, it was a fairly pleasant experience. Every one of the people I was working with was pleasant person to work with: there was absolutely *no* attitude of "you're a horrible person because of your political affiliation". And the efforts to actually assist and explain things to the voters who needed things explained to were all polite, even when nerves were starting to get frayed from the cold (and then, the extended hours). Personally, I only witnessed two acts of belligerence from voters, one being a person who was offended that we provided signs and ballots in spanish. Said voter (I won't even reveal the sex of this person) claimed that in order to be a citizen of this country, one has to be able to reand and speak English. The other was a voter who was offended that, as a registered independent/minor party voter, s/he wasn't allowed to vote for either major party's candidates. I did hear *of* a second person like that, but didn't personally witness it. And there was one person who stated to me his/her offense that the ballots gave a voter a choice of english or spanish, although this particular person kept a calm demeanor about his/her opinion, no belligerence at all displayed.
So, that's about four disgruntled voters out of 943. I kind of like those numbers.
But it's going to be hellacious in the general election. We are already working with a skeleton crew, due to lack of sufficient numbers of election judges. And given that this is the second election that the polls have been extended, and that the extensions have little to no positive effect, I doubt there will be all that many more volunteers for election judges between now and November. And I personally know of two judges who have said that they won't be doing this in November, given the abuse they perceive from the board of elections.