Tuesday Nov 3: Election Day

I woke up around 1:30am and couldn’t go back to sleep, anxious and worried about the day ahead. Arrived at the voting site around 5:45am. Placed the curbside voting signs where they needed to go, then walked inside to help Chris and Betty Jo. Chris didn’t know and couldn’t find passwords so I helped him boot up a laptop and voting machines while Betty Jo made coffee. As workers arrived they found things to do, last minute preparations.
 
Dozens of people were waiting in line to vote when the polls opened at 6:30am. There was a steady line until 8am, then sporadic the rest of the day. A few early bird voters may have waited 30 minutes or more to vote though most waited less than 15 minutes.
 
Eddie stood next to a table stocked with PPE near the entrance, ostensibly to distribute gloves and masks to voters though he mostly just stood there without saying much at first. Mid morning he repaired a broken voting booth so he more than earned his pay. He also proved useful sorting voters into lines based on their last names to facilitate efficient registration check in.
 
Betty Jo and Carol flipped through printed poll books at the registration table while Margaret and I sat at the nearby ballot distribution table. Each voter checked in with Betty Jo or Carol to verify their voter registration information and sign their Authorization to Vote (ATV) form, then I numbered the ATVs sequentially as Margaret distributed ballots. Either of us could have done the job alone but it was nice having a buddy at the table. Margaret was a librarian who seemed to appreciate my OCD inclinations more than most people. Bonus: she was a democrat.
 
Michael, a young democrat and aspiring financial planner, disinfected surfaces and helped escort voters to available voting booths as they opened up. Joe monitored the DS200 ballot scanner tabulator. During a break he told us about his friend who was “watching” a voting a site across town in east Winston, on high alert for voter fraud. Anthony, a retail store manager, handled curbside among other tasks. He never indicated his party affiliation, leading me to believe he’s probably a pretty good poker player.
 
Everyone got along well and covered for each other as we rotated breaks. Joe had bought ginormous tenderloin biscuits from Stratford BBQ in King for our breakfast. For lunch we had chicken salad croissants provided by Betty Jo, homemade vegetable soup made by Carol, and a variety of snacks contributed by others. For dinner Chris ordered 2 small pizzas from Papa John.   
 
When the polls closed at 7:30pm I helped Chris run reports from the DS200 while everyone else pitched in to organize paperwork or pack up equipment and extra supplies. Election day close out was slightly different compared to early voting though not difficult. We finished up around 8:30pm.
 
After driving home I flipped network news channels in search of early election results. Disappointed to see Florida was leaning toward Trump, Greg and I went to bed hoping for better news in the morning.