Election judging yesterday in St. Paul--started the day at 6:00 AM ended at 3:00 AM this morning. Most precincts in my ward were able to wrap things up sooner than that, but a certain precinct (located near a major Catholic university) had over 1,600 total votes, over 300 of which were same day registrants and another 300 voting via absentee ballots. My impression is that these were among this highest totals of any individual precincts in the city. Given the hand counting provisions and the new procedures for handling the multiple ballots utilized, the time frame outlined above was, believe it or not, reasonable. The good news is, everything was handled with the utmost attention to detail and procedure, all voters were properly accommodated, and the counts are dead solid accurate (as our extremely angry, aggressive, and largely ignorant poll watchers from the GOP will begrudgingly attest, I'm sure).
Personal involvement in ensuring the process was handled with competence and efficiency was the reason I volunteered for this duty, and that's exactly what I got (I'll pause now for your appreciative and heartfelt applause). As an unexpected bonus, I got to spend many hours, going late into the night with the young, brassy, and beautiful head election judge from that precinct. She was extraordinary in her leadership abilities and commitment to the higher ideals of election judging and democracy. Driving back downtown at 3 AM to drop off the results and materials, I wondered, when was the last time this happened? That is, me tooling about town in the wee small hours, chatting and laughing it up with a smart, beautiful young woman, with whom I've just been engaged in a titanic struggle against the forces of totalitarianism and darkness (slight hyperbole--used for affect). NEVER-that's when. Grrrrrrrrr...zzzzzzzzzzz.
No comments:
Post a Comment