~a column by Colleen O’Brien
Although it’s way past Election Day and most of us are moving on, I have stories to tell from poll watching, something I’d never done. The stories are mostly uplifting in a way that is reassuring as we’re bombarded with an invisible enemy on top of political hubris.
As a poll watcher for Common Cause, I wore a black T-shirt that read “Non Partisan Election Protection!” I had a sign with the same words that I’d stick into the dirt beside me 150 feet from the polling place I was assigned to. During my four days on duty, no one needed protection, which was a good thing, if a tad tedious. My directors explained that the sign and my presence often deterred mischief. I became a true watcher, wondering idly about the lives of voters climbing the two tiers of steps into the courthouse.
Common Cause poll workers at other polling spots texted about voters yelling at each other, about trucks full of screamers rolling slowly past long lines of voters, some incidents of pushing and intimidation, one threat of “If you vote for so and so, I’ll find you and hurt you.”
I didn’t have much to contribute to the texting check-ins because I saw little of this. I watched tableaus of mostly funny things, although some activities I decided were just on this side of a ploy to annoy:
One side street of the courthouse was lined with Biden-Harris signs and flags, older women sitting in beach chairs waving little American flags at passersby, some who honked; across the street from them, the street was lined with Trump fans, sturdy young men and women marching back and forth on the sidewalk wearing red, white and blue clothing, T-shirts with faces on them, and waving American flags with faces on them. They jogged and jiggled to the high-decibel boom boxes playing mostly country western and yelled at passersby, some who honked. After every third song, a rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” blared across the street, prompting the Biden ladies to stand up.
One of them told me that by the time I got there for my 3 pm shift, it was no longer funny. But the women repeatedly stood, honoring their national anthem. As soon as the Biden folks left for the day, the other side left.
I watched two giant pick-ups take up two parking spaces apiece among the 10 available in front of the courthouse. They each had lots of flags upright in the beds of their trucks, and they bounded up the steps together like athletes in a race. They were inside a long time, and in the mean time I watched an older man with a very slow-moving older woman leaning heavily on him stopping traffic on the side street as they made their way from a parking lot to the courthouse steps. It took them many minutes to make it to the top, just as the young men bounded out of the doors as if they were ponies let out of the barn. They were in their vehicles and roaring away before the old couple had their temperatures checked.
I saw one young man drive up in a shiny, low, sleek black convertible. He wore ragged, cut-off jeans and no shirt and walked leisurely up the steps, got his temperature taken, turned around and walked leisurely back down. I thought he must have a fever and they were denying him entrance – or maybe they were making him put on a shirt. But no, he reached into the passenger seat and grabbed a paper, maybe his sample ballot, walked back up, made a quick U-turn and walked back down. He threw the paper in, grabbed another paper and back up he went. The whole scene made me smile; it’s not just old people who can’t remember what they’re doing.
About 4 o’clock, the Superintendent of Elections came out of the courthouse and sat on a bench by the front doors. He tapped his foot to the country western tunes, grinning happily, either at the familiar songs or the older women getting up and out of their chairs every 15 minutes.
The number of voters dwindled. Promptly at closing time, the big doors were locked.
On Election Day, I stayed late in my spot in the park across from the courthouse and watched the city police cordon off one side of the polling place, a cop car at either end of the alley, blue lights flashing. This was too intriguing not to know what was going on, so I walked over and asked a policewoman what was happening. She said, “This is where all the ballots come in from around the county. We’re protection for the safety of the vote.”
I loved how she said it – the “safety of the vote.”
Feeling assured that everyone in charge knew exactly what to do and that all was ticking along in a routine way, I did not stay to see the vans pulling in with their police escorts—it would be awhile before that started happening, and bed called.
After a wearying day of not running up and down steps and not standing up every quarter hour for the nation’s song – just watching from across a street, another safeguard for a democracy over and done with – I picked up my sign and walked away from my brief but satisfying career as a poll watcher across from a courthouse in America.
