A Day at the Polls

Tuesday was election day! A few months ago I went to our county's website and signed up to help at the polls. All it said was, "fill out this form if you'd like to help with the next election."

So I did.

A few weeks ago, I received a call asking if I was still interested. I said yes.

Turns out, election officers are required to be there the entire time the polls are open. That's thirteen hours. They are also required to arrive an hour before and stay an extra two hours to count the votes and clean up. So in total, I was required to be there for sixteen hours. 

Since signing up, I've become a full-time sub for some additional classes that I now needed to get subs for. Also, my husband had a work trip to Ohio Monday and Tuesday which meant I needed to ask my mom to spend the night Monday night and take the kids to school.

Also I had a cold.

Basically, everything that could go wrong went wrong.

When I woke up at 4:15 Tuesday morning, I was seriously regretting my decision to do my civic duty.

But, by the end of the day (though I was certainly tired), I was so glad I did it! Here are a few of my takeaways from the day:

1. We should embrace any opportunity we have to build relationships within our local community. Today we rarely spend any time getting to know our neighbors. I know for myself, most of my free time is spent with my close circle of friends. By the end of the day I had personally spoken with 1,950 people who lived within two miles of me. I met new neighbors, connected with neighbors I didn't know that well, and even realized that people I knew from work or church lived in my neighborhood.

2. There is joy in the process: Sometimes election day can feel a bit divisive. People are there to vote for their candidate and they know that others in the room may not be, which results in a general defensive tone. This election was not like that. Many of the candidates were running un-opposed and I think that changed the tone. I'm sure the tone next November will be different, but I loved the fact that people were there to simply take part in the process. There was a joy in seeing the process work. In knowing that our citizens had a right and were exercising that right. The voters were respectful of one another and grateful to those volunteering.

3. There is joy in a job well done: By the end of the night, our group of thirteen election officers were all tired. But when our numbers matched and we knew that we had done our job well, there was an overall feeling of pride and joy. The other officers had done this before and did their jobs well. It was a pleasure to work with this group of individuals.


A lot of people have asked if I would do this again. I told someone that it's a little bit like having a baby. In the moment you think, "never again", but then in 12-18 months most people seem to forget how awful labor is and instead say, "that was wonderful, let's do it again!"

We'll see what next year brings, but I would encourage you guys to at least serve once in your life, you won't regret it!