The Other Side

Yesterday. What a day. 

We arrived to open the polling place at 5:30 a.m. For whatever reasons, and as usually happens, I was operating on around three hours of sleep. To compound matters, my back, which goes out on me on occasion, decided yesterday would be a fine day to seize up painfully several times as a protest against all that leaf raking I've been doing of late. And on top of that, only one other woman who worked the polls with me last time had returned -- most of the poll workers were new, probably because the old crew were high-COVID risk age and decided to sit this one out, so a lot of learning on the job had to happen. 

Voters were lined up when we opened things up to them as required at 6:30. The flow was steady and grew throughout the morning. We were rushing to accommodate everything, particularly with the new COVID procedures requiring sanitizing everything down for each voter on check-in, and in the booths after each use. A lot of people, much more than I've usually seen, came in during the morning, and we all scrambled to make sure everyone was processed through and waits were minimized. 

Throughout it all though, there were no real glitches or problems we were not able to resolve, and no incidents of hostility or even inappropriate conduct worth mentioning. What surprised me was how things slowed down after 5:00 p.m. We were all expecting an after-work rush that never came, and things only slowed down after that. I guess all that absentee and early voting, and the morning rush, meant people were serious about making sure their votes counted. 

In our last hour, waiting to close out at 7:30, I think maybe three voters showed up and the big challenge for me was to keep from dozing off. We closed down with a few challenges, but by following the checklists managed to get out in under an hour. 

I had looked forward all day to getting home and rewarding myself by going out to the porch with a cigar and two fingers of the good stuff, turning on the space heater, and catching another episode of a streamed series I'm watching. Maybe tonight. I barely had the energy to put myself to bed.

Ohio results were mixed. Big picture:  Trump took the day. Closer to home, a wretched gun-grabber was re-elected to the state assembly -- in fairness, his opponent really didn't do much to put fire in any bellies other than having an "R" after her name.

And now we wait for national results to see if continued volunteering to work the system will be something I still care to do, or if its integrity no longer matters because the outcome will be a foregone conclusion.