Oct 28: Weird Wednesday

 
Wednesday was better than Monday, but weird in its own way. 
 
A young woman in her 20s made a mistake on her ballot and asked for a fresh ballot. Following protocol I wrote “spoil” on her first ballot to void it. When I stepped away to pull another ballot out of a file cabinet for her, she grabbed the spoiled ballot off my desk. I asked for it back, letting her know I needed to transfer the ballot ID number from the first ballot to the second. She said she wanted to keep the first ballot to copy her voting decisions to save time. I said ok but I still needed the spoiled ballot back when she was done; it couldn’t leave the room. She seemed bothered by this but agreed. When the woman finished voting she gave her spoiled ballot to Brenda instead of me. I noticed but didn’t think much of it. Then as the voter left the room, she asked for my name. A few minutes later an electioneer from outside knocked on our door and asked to speak with me. I walked outside where he relayed to me a dramatically embellished version of the above. The voter felt I had disrespected her and tried to intimidate her, and the electioneer was there to report the complaint. I thanked him and attempted to explain what had happened from my perspective but he was so upset about the voter’s complaint that he didn’t seem to hear or believe what I told him. An observer interjected to say he had witnessed what had happened inside the room and that I had been respectful to the voter. The observer was republican, not hostile in any way, but wearing a name tag identifying himself as republican. The electioneer was a democrat. Rather than listen to the republican observer or me, the democratic electioneer stormed off in a huff. After a brief cooling off period I walked outside to follow up with the electioneer, to try to make peace with him. I again told him I was sorry the voter was upset and that I was not trying to intimidate her. I still don’t think he believed me.
 
A little while later a uniformed police officer and a security guard came to the voting room and asked to speak with the lead. I walked out into the hallway to meet them, a bit nervous. They informed me of an incident outside involving a dispute between electioneers. Several moderate democrats had been passing out voting brochures every day since early voting began. A new person, a younger more progressive black man arrived today sharing information about racial justice, income inequality and reparations. The moderates felt the progressive was being too pushy and they wanted him to leave. When the new guy refused to leave, a white male electioneer (the same one I had spoken with earlier) had called the police. Because of the racial dynamics involved, the white officers didn’t want to risk escalating the situation by their mere presence so they asked me if as a BOE employee I would be willing to speak with the electioneers. Having completed conflict resolution and de-escalation training years earlier, I agreed to try. We walked outside and the officers stood back away from the fray while I walked toward it. The young black man was using his cell phone to film the tense situation as multiple electioneers yelled and talked over one another like rowdy guests on an episode of Jerry Springer. I calmly and politely introduced myself to the group and utilized active listening skills to gather more information about the dispute, asking them to please allow each person to answer individually one at a time so I could hear them better. Slowly tensions eased and we worked out a compromise so that the new guy could continue electioneering in the general area following the same protocols as everyone else (no blocking the sidewalk, no stalking voters, no hard sell tactics, etc.). After everyone had calmed down and agreed to peacefully coexist I thanked everyone for their cooperation and began walking back toward the voting room. The new guy put his cell phone away, stopped filming, and told me he had been scared because the white guy had called the police. I told him I understood, that I had spoken with the police, and that they were sensitive to his concerns which is why they stayed back instead of responding directly. New guy said he really appreciated that and asked me to thank the officers for him, which I did.
 
Later I was helping a curbside voter when she told me she almost didn’t vote because she didn’t like people hanging around the voting site watching her. Specifically she was concerned about someone sitting in a car parked behind the curbside area. There were several cars in the parking lot and I didn’t see anyone lurking but I told her I would investigate, and that I wouldn’t allow anyone to bother her. After she finished voting and drove away, I walked around the parking lot and saw someone sitting in a parked car as she had described. A young white woman in her mid 20s wearing an Elon sweatshirt was slumped down in the driver’s seat of a small sedan. I honestly would not have noticed her if I had not looked closely at all the parked cars. Her car window was down about an inch for airflow so I walked toward her and introduced myself. She rolled her window down further so we could talk. She said she was a law student working as a curbside observer. I let her know the voter felt intimidated due to being watched while she voted and I asked if she would consider moving her vehicle to a different location in the parking lot in order to avoid making other voters uncomfortable. She said she would call her boss about it but she never moved her car. Other things distracted me from following up so I didn't have a chance to call BOE headquarters until after my shift had ended. Tim said people not on the official vetted list of observers were prohibited and he asked me to call him immediately if it happened again.