Jim Vincent: Election Officer, American Made

Vincent asserts reassuringly that he and his team leave their party affiliations at the door when they enter the precinct.

Contrary to the demands of partisan and even personal loyalty that we hear about today, Vincent, a Republican, thinks Republicans and Democrats need to work together to pass legislation and keep the government functioning. He speaks glowingly of Kristin MacKenzie, a Democrat who has served as his deputy precinct chief. In the course of their collaboration, Vincent says the two have solved “all the political problems of the world” but adds with a straight face that nobody has bothered to ask for their assistance.

Vincent describes what he and his team do in very straightforward terms: “Our job is to facilitate helping every voter vote.”

The system is set up to do just that. Voters who are registered to vote in Vincent’s precinct are checked in and given a ballot that they complete and feed into the voting machine. Unregistered voters can do same-day registration and vote provisionally. Voters who are in the wrong precinct are given the choice to go to the correct precinct or vote provisionally. Voters who have forgotten their ID can either leave and return with their ID, sign a legally-binding ID Confirmation Statement, or vote provisionally.

When a voter casts a provisional ballot, the ballot is sealed in an envelope and placed in a sealed box that goes to the county at the end of the day. The local electoral board will determine the eligibility of all provisional voters before opening any of the provisional ballot envelopes for the votes to be counted.

Vincent is a proponent of the system, as it ensures that every citizen who wants to vote can vote. “It’s rare that somebody walks out unhappy,” he says.

To the contrary. First-time voters are acknowledged with a shout of “First-time voter” from a member of the election team, usually the person who checks them in, that is followed by applause and cheers from the team and the veteran voters in the building.

I first met Vincent when I walked into his precinct at 5:30 am on Election Day last year. He gave me what was pretty clearly a hostile look. I was there as a poll observer for the Democratic Party (that’s how it’s done in Virginia — all poll observers must be authorized by one of the parties with candidates in the election), and I had the distinct impression that the guy who turned out to be the precinct chief did not want me there. Once I presented the letter authorizing me to be there, however, Vincent was an amiable host.

During our interview six months later, when I mentioned he’d given me the hairy eyeball, he explained, “That comes from the security training. If you walk in and we don’t know you and you’re not getting in line to vote and you’re carrying a bag, our first responsibility is determining if you’re any kind of threat.”

Training is required to be a precinct chief. Vincent remembers he had to take three courses and pass an exam before he could work his first election as chief in November 2021. He has to renew his certification every two years and attend a chiefs briefing before each election. Those briefings are held primarily to update the staff on any changes made to the meticulously considered and documented procedures that are in the chief’s handbook.

The handbook anticipates virtually any situation that might arise during an election and dictates how it should be handled. The handbook also details the procedures for setting up the precinct the day before the election and closing out the precinct once the polls close at 7 pm.

For Vincent, the step-by-step details are not just vital to ensuring the integrity of the election, but to relieving the election chiefs of unwanted pressure. “There’s no room for indecision or personal judgment or anything like that. I don’t have to call it a ball or a strike, right?”

Vincent is one of approximately 10,000 election officers in Virginia, and one of more than 600,000 in the country. Most who serve in these roles are community members who believe in the rights and freedoms of America’s promise and who understand the responsibilities those rights and freedoms entail.

But “precinct chief” is just one of the many roles he has had in Fairfax County.

After growing up in Alexandria, Virginia, just across the river from Washington, Vincent attended George Mason University from 1975-1978, where he studied engineering . He worked in private practice for 15 years before going to work for his father’s company, which built medical facilities for the Department of Defense. The last big project he managed for the company was the construction of a clinic at the Pentagon that was completed in March 2001.

“It was built on the river side, and the plane hit on the opposite side of the Pentagon,” Vincent said, recalling the events of 9/11. “We had designed some exam rooms so they could be converted to ORs in less than 5 minutes, and they did that. Saved a lot of lives that day.”

Around that same time, Vincent started working in real estate and eventually turned in his engineer’s hat in 2010 to go full time as a realtor. “Full time”, though, is a bit of a misnomer — he also finds time to run a stage management company, working with local professional and community theaters in the DC metro area. And, as noted earlier, he’s umpired in Little League since he was 18 as a way to give back for the years he played in the league.

For Vincent, working the polls is just one more opportunity to serve locally. “The more I’ve gotten to know about how Fairfax County runs its elections,” he says, “the more proud I am to work as an election officer.”