Faith Through the Journey

For 57 hours this past week, I helped facilitate my fellow citizens’ right to vote. It’s the Texas law that there be a period of early voting allowed prior to every election, for any reason, for any voter who chooses to vote prior to election day. Of course, working with the public is always interesting because you never know who’s going to come through the line and what baggage they may have brought with them that they will unload onto anyone who will listen to their story! It never ceases to amaze me what’s in people’s minds, and what they’re thinking is truly “remarkable”! We hear from people who are afraid to vote because they’re afraid there’s a secret camera inside the voting unit watching them and filming their vote; people don’t want to show their voting ID, whether it’s their driver’s license or voter registration card, for fear that they’re going into some secret “database”; and when we ask for their signature, it can send them right over the edge! If “people” find their signature on anything, they will most certainly become victims of identity theft.

Then there are those who are completely unafraid to tell you exactly what they’re thinking! Since there are rules about “electioneering” with 100 feet of the polling location, these enthusiastic voters have to be silenced or the election officials risk complaints from other voters. Others who come in together, mainly husbands and wives, may try to confer with one another while they are in their separate voting booths. This, too, is against the law, and some of them are none too happy when told they are not allowed to engage one another while voting. The “How do you know I’m tellling the truth about who I am?” voter is also interesting. Once I went through the list of what was acceptable as identification that would satisfy the legal requirements, and when the voter asked what would happen if he had none of those, I simply told him he couldn’t vote. He looked at me a little shocked, and then appeared rather embarassed when the other voters around us who heard his not-too-quiet remarks did everything but cheer me on for silencing this rather “aggressive” voter.

After years of participating in this process, I have come to accept the fact that yes, there will always be someone who comes in two minutes before we close, and even though we’ve been open for 12 hours they complain that they didn’t have enough time to come in. Then, too, there will be the longest lines on the very last day of early voting, in spite of the fact that we have been open for either 5 12-hour days or 12 10-12 hour days before then. We who work the polls have to keep telling each other that if people have waited until the very last minute to vote, they will just have to accept the fact that they will need to wait. If they are in line at the designated closing hour, they will be allowed to vote. Once assured of that, they all seem to relax and take a deep breath. While we still don’t serve refreshments in line or give away prizes (other than maybe an “I voted” sticker), our attitude can have a positive effect on the voters and make them a little more agreeable. It’s at some of those times that I am most grateful for my dad’s sense of humor, as he had just the right comment for almost any situation that could lighten the moment.

In two more days, I will once again assist voters in casting their votes as the actual primary runoff election date arrives. Another 14 hour day, with set up and closing, and then we take a short break until October when early voting for the general election begins. By then, hopefully all of the workers will have had to time to recover and forget about the difficult voters or the ones who tried to make their lives miserable, and will again be ready to help our fellow citizens exercise this most important and responsible act of citizenship.