Observations of a Poll Watcher

Applause for new voters is the best part of my time as a poll watcher. Whenever the call goes out – “First time voter!” – the election workers in the room break out in smiles and cheers and clapping while the (usually) young person who just cast their vote smiles back bashfully.

I clap and cheer with the election staff, and so do many of the other veteran voters who are there to cast their votes.

We did this eight or nine times on Election Day last week, and we even had the bonus of getting to applaud twice for a man of about 40 who humbly said in accented English that he was originally from Turkey. He was not only a first time voter but also a new US citizen. His response to our enthusiastic cheers was a face full of pride and gratitude.

Getting to observe the election workers and voters in several Virginia communities has been a privilege. My job is to look for and report anomalies in the well-documented procedures, such as voters who are turned away for a wrong reason or if some equipment breaks down, as the electronic check-in machines did when the polls opened in 2022 – the very first time I was on the job. Somehow, though, in the three times I’ve served as a poll observer, all the partisan vitriol and paranoia about election fraud fades from view and is replaced with a sense of common purpose: making sure the voting experience is safe, secure, and positive.

Taking a few moments to watch some of the voters also fills me with faith in our democracy. People are not just going through the motions. The father who takes his toddler’s hand before feeding his completed ballot into the voting machine; the woman spending 10 minutes with her ballot, clearly in deep thought about the decisions she was making; the pre-teens looking over their mother’s shoulder as she fills in the ovals on her ballot – these things tell me our democracy is still a vibrant, living thing.

And the countless “thank you for voting” and “thanks for your service” exchanged between election workers and voters are indicative of a long day of sustained civility and mutual respect, a grateful acknowledgement that here on this day we all are on the same team even if we might make different choices.

Once the polls close, the nine-person election crew goes to work following an incredibly detailed, step-by-step guide to ensure the results reported are accurate and free from tampering. It’s not work I would recommend to anyone who does not tolerate being micromanaged.

It usually takes about 30-45 minutes to secure the USB drives from the voting machines as well as the absentee ballots and provisional ballots cast, which are not run through the voting machines. Then they are driven to the county election headquarters for processing and counting.

There’s another 45 minutes or so to remove and secure the actual ballots from the voting machines, secure the machines themselves, tabulate the results from CVS-receipt-length tapes generated from the voting machines and report them electronically to election headquarters, have the entire crew all sign off, and take down all the signage, fold up the tables, and stack the chairs.

Only then does the election team’s 18-hour day end and they can go home. And my somewhat shorter day also ends.

The experience this year once again confirmed for me what election expert David Becker told me during our 2020 interview. People from both parties all want the same thing – “a good, smooth, effective election where all eligible voters, but only eligible voters, can participate and have their vote counted.”

More than 99% of the time, that’s what we get. Tuesday was no different. In the precinct where I was assigned, there were no incidents to report.