I set my alarm clock for 4:45 am. And as usual I woke up before the alarm went off - even though this was far from my normal wake-up time. *shrug*
I woke up almost a half hour before 4:45 am. I was very surprised that it was so light outside. No need to turn lights on. The sun hadn't risen over the mountains yet, but with all the light in the sky it would be a matter of time before the sun came up and over the Swan Mountain Range.Since I wouldn't be crawling through barb wire fence this day I decided to wear clothes that weren't ripped, torn, or patched. Yes... I found some.
I may have even looked respectable. Naturally these nice clothes were clothes given to me by former girlfriends as I have no fashion sense at all.As I drove to Whitefish and the polling place it was so light outside I didn't need to turn my car's headlights on. During the drive the sun rose through the gap in the mountains. The gap is the way to Glacier Nat'l Park. I should have brought my sunglasses - who would have thought they'd be needed before 6 am?!
Not much traffic at this hour - which makes sense - who gets up so early?!! The morning was cool as the temperature was in the lower 40s F. Fog lay here and there east of the road in lower areas. Some hayfield irrigation sprinklers were going and I wondered if there was a connection to the nearby fog.
Other election workers were already at the Whitefish Armory when I arrived after 6 am. I noticed the parking lot was small, as almost a quarter of the parking spaces were filled with the election workers' vehicles. I parked at the far end of the parking lot. But not in the last parking space. Next to that space was a path that led to the new nearby skate park. No sense taking a chance with some kid veering off the path into my car.
The high was predicted to be in the 80s F so I put one of those folding window shades in my car's window. I had washed my car the previous day, and found, yes, it is still black. The better to absorb the sun's rays! And I have a few rust spots growing here and there - from my days living in "winter salt" Minnesota. I hardly see cars with window shades anymore. Does anyone use window shades in their car anymore? People with black cars must!
I grabbed from my car the bags of apples, grapes, and cantaloupe I brought for our group and headed inside. I had to rattle the door as it was still locked, Rene came over and let me in.
The rest of my team was there. Carmen, Pam, Tom, Rene, and a woman who substituted for our other team member who had gotten ill. I forgot this woman's name. Christine ...I think.
The armory had a small room with a refrigerator, sink and microwave. I stored my food in the refrigerator and headed to our area.
Three precincts were at the armory. We (precinct 20) were in the NE section, Precinct 47 was across from us in the NW section, and precinct 48 was in the SW section. People entered the armory from the SE.
Our equipment (computers, voting booths/stands, tables) was supposed to be set up on Monday, but because a dance was scheduled Monday evening in the armory our equipment wasn't set up until very early Tuesday morning. That meant we did not have Monday to do the rest of the setup. This entailed putting up all the signs indicating which precinct this was, the sample ballots, voting instructions, signs about "no cell phone use" (apparently the powers that be are leery of camera phones taking photos of how someone voted), etc. We also didn't have a chance to go over the materials for each judge. A few weeks ago when I had gotten my absentee ballot I had gotten a copy of the provisional judge's (that's me!) handbook and read through it. So that helped.
It was a busy chaos for approximately 45 minutes until the polls opened. Figuring out what needed to be done, what stuff we needed, where stuff was, putting up signs, getting the computerized voting machine ready, finding the material needed for each judge, what is in this and that folder, what this and that envelope is for, etc. I found which envelopes were for provisional ballots and then had to put labels on a few of them to be ready to use later if needed. We had to all stop and get officially sworn in to protect and defend the U.S. and Montana constitutions. Hectic.
As provisional judge I had the phone that would be used to call the election office to resolve issues. It was a track phone which I had never used. I couldn't figure it out - I couldn't even find the on button. I know, pathetic. I'm so not a hardware gadget guy.
I went over to precinct 47 and a light red haired woman there fiddled with it and we got it working. Playing around we determined what some of the buttons did. Before I left she asked my name which she wrote on her notepad. Later my team and I realized she was somewhat odd. During the setup period she was going around asking everyone's name and then writing it down on her notepad. Or at least the names she got as some of my team members wouldn't give this woman their name. "It is none of her business. Doesn't she have better things to do right now?!"
After I returned to my precinct with the track phone Tom found the sheet with instructions on how to use the track phone. Now he finds it!
About 10 minutes before the polls opened we powered up the computer voting machine. Nothing. Precinct 47 also had nothing, but the other precinct had their machine working. We determined that while our machine was plugged in, the surge protector's (?) switch wasn't turned on. I flipped it on. Success!
Precinct 47 had to operate their computer in "power out" mode which meant putting the ballots into a slot in front of the computer instead of feeding the ballot through the computer to be read. Later they figured out the problem and got their computer working. After the polls closed they had to scan their unscanned ballots to get a final vote count.
After the computer finished its initial "power on" printout, and we all verified the settings were all set to zero, we all had to sign the printout.
It was almost 7 pm and people were lined up outside the door. We were still setting up stuff. Then everyone realized no one had ballots. What?! A worker from another precinct borrowed our track phone (only one for all three precincts). A call to the election office and we learned the ballots were in the locked room at the SW end of the armory. The problem was no one had a key to that room. Apparently only a Whitefish city employee had a key. He never arrived till 7:20 am or so. That gave us time to organize further. We did emphasize with the voters outside waiting in line.
When the locked room finally was opened, we all got our precinct's locked box with the ballots for our precinct. We all had to witness the seals and the breaking of the seals on this metal box. Inside was the book with the registered names and ballot info for our precinct, and the official ballots. Our numbered ballots began with 76 as the first 75 numbers were reserved for absentee ballots. A special bar code on each ballot indicated to the computer that this ballot was for our precinct. That is how we were able to have a simple, low ballot number.
This being a primary, one group of ballots were for the Republican party and the other group of ballots were for the Democratic party. Where are ballots 76 and up? Found them.
I had no sooner gotten the ballots out on the table in front of me than the doors were opened to let the voters in. It was 7:30 am now. A half hour late. The first three voters in the door came straight to our precinct.
Our entire team was new. That is no one had ever worked as an election judge before. Out of all the precincts at the armory, only two members of precinct 48 had been an election judge before. Later they complimented us that we were doing a good job and never panicked in the early morning chaos. They liked how we were so happy throughout the day. They had even expected us to break out in song at some point. We never did sing.
Precinct 47... on the other hand... more on them later!Later in the day Carmen recognized a former election judge for our precinct. The earlier scuttlebutt was that this entire group of judges refused to work election this year, and were quite vocal in their refusal when asked to do so by the election office. We wanted to know why? Something happen? Personality conflict? Carmen learned the former judges were unhappy with the new changes; the computers, the new way of doing things, the new location with the concrete floors. They didn't see the need for change. Therefore they quit working as judges.
In our precinct Rene was the greeter by the door. The greeter would steer the voter to the correct precinct - or attempt to. Christine was the person who looked up the voter's name in the registry and had them sign it. Pam was next and wrote the voter's name down and their ballot number. Tom helped the voter feed their ballot into the computer. Carmen was the chief judge and filled in whenever when someone needed a break, or checked with another precinct for answers when we had questions. I even asked Carmen to check the other precinct's vote totals to see if we were ahead. (Nope). I was the provisional judge, but we also needed a person who stamped the ballot with the official stamp, tell Pam the ballots number, give the voter the ballots, instruct them how to handle the ballots and which booths they could use to vote in. Hmmm... who could do that?
Now at the training session when we divided up roles I had thought the ballot judge was a separate judge, but was told the computer voting machine judge would handle it as it was part of their duties. But here and now we realized this would be too much as Tom would be busy helping the voter get their ballot into the computer. The hard plastic privacy sleeve did not fit the computer's slot so the voter (as the judge cannot handle the ballot after the voter has marked it) would have to slide their ballot from the sleeve into the computer until the computer grabbed it.
I didn't mind doing the ballot judge's job in addition to the provisional judge's job as I didn't expect the provisional judge to be busy. I actually liked being ballot judge as it kept me busy. I also didn't mind having to repeat the same thing over and over (and over!), though every one else said I and they would be hearing my spiel in their dreams later that night.
First I would stamp each Republican and Democratic ballot. As the day wore on my fingers were getting very red from the ink. It didn't wash off, but today it is gone. Then I would tell Pam the ballot number. Once in a while the person next in line was done registering before the prior person as he or she was taking a moment to fill out a change of address card. Pam and I would coordinate the ballot numbers for these people who jumped ahead so that the numbers in her book always increased correctly.
"You have 2 ballots. One for the Republican party and one for the Democrats. You can only vote for one party. Before you vote, take the ballot you will not be voting with, fold it up, and place it into this envelope." I would then show them the envelope that said "Place your NONVOTING ballot in here". Once in a while someone would say 'That's for the ballot I don't use?", or ask if they hadn't noticed the words "NONVOTING" on the envelope, "I put the ballot I fill out in here?" No, no, no!
Then I'd say, "Then you fill out your ballot. Once you have finishing filling out your ballot, take your ballot and slide it into the privacy sleeve so we can't see how you voted." I would move the ballots across the top of the brown hard plastic container so they could see the opening at the bottom and how to slide the ballot into it.
"The bottom of the ballot - the tab - will hang out the sleeve. Bring all of this, the envelope and the sleeve, to this gentleman by this machine." I would point at Tom and the computer. "He will take your envelope, tear off your tab from your ballot, and help you enter your ballot into the computer."
"You can vote at these booths along the wall or these over here. If you have any questions come back and ask."
Later I had the idea that some people may forget to turn the ballot over to vote on the back, even though the ballot said both to turn the ballot over, and to vote both sides of the ballot. My idea came after a few spoiled ballots where people didn't pay attention to the front side for other ballot issues.By the afternoon I had added to my spiel for the people to turn the ballot over, and I would flip the ballot over to show them the back.
After the polls closed and we printed the final printout I noticed it listed some non votes for entries that I knew were on the back of the ballot. Darn.
A number of people commented that this all seemed so complicated and I wish we could vote how we used to. Some people told me they only wanted one ballot, and then tell me which party. I told them - with a smile - that I had to give them both ballots and make them do the work of folding the unused ballot and putting it in the envelope.
Some people were unhappy they couldn't vote for certain races on both ballots. Usually these people were Democrats as our sheriff's race only had Republican candidates (three) as no Democrats are running for sheriff. Therefore it is almost certain the Republican primary winner would become sheriff in November.
Usually people commented about the sheriff's race when getting their ballots. One attractive woman came to me to make this comment after she voted. I sympathized. Later I thought... was she providing feedback or flirting or both? The problem is that I get so task oriented I totally miss when women flirt.
Of course during lulls I noticed the attractive women. They seemed to mainly go to the other precincts. *waaah!*
Tom commented on one woman in 3 inch stiletto heels and a short cowgirl skirt. Unfortunately by the time he commented she was hidden behind the voting stands. Of our eight stands, four were along the north wall and four were to our left. These last four partially blocked the view to precinct 48. I could only see below the stands. I was able to see her legs and her high heels. Nice. Very, very nice! I wanted to see more but couldn't. *waaah!* The view to precinct 47 was unobstructed. We all saw and commented on the young woman in the platform high heeled shoes. She had a short white skirt and a black spaghetti-straps blouse. Fantastic legs! Wow!
We did get a few attractive nicely dressed women voting in our precinct. One woman had a wedding ring "rock" so large that it almost blinded me. "Does she have a hand under that rock? I can't see. The light bouncing off it is blinding me!"
For other women I wondered if their arm didn't get tired from carrying such a large and heavy wedding ring "rock". And while the majority of voters were older, a few younger people voted. One young woman had a small nose ring. I thought, "I don't even subject my cattle to having a nose ring!" Another woman had ear rings and also pierced the tops of her ears and put "bar-bell" plugs through her ear. Ok... lots of metal on her ears!
Later one of the crabby election judges from precinct 47 complained that some of our voters were using their election stands in which to mark their ballot. One older fellow apparently tried to then vote at their computer (one of the few voters who I did not give instructions to as I was on a bathroom break). Their computer judge caught the error before he voted. Not that it mattered as the computers were programmed to reject ballots not for that precinct. Their judge had not followed procedure and already slid the voter's unmarked ballot in the extra lock box. It didn't matter as the voter filled out his ballot correctly and our machine took it.
Anyway, the precinct 47 judge had asked us to move our four stands on our left and put them in the middle of the room between our precincts. Earlier I had moved one of our stands on the left further west and away from our tables as I had noticed some people would walk west around them even though they did not need to do so as there was room between our table and the stands.
Carmen by now was annoyed (like the rest of us) by the precinct 47 judges and didn't want to move the stands. I was all for moving our four stands as I noticed many people would forget the stands were there as they were at the voters back after I gave them their ballots. And if I moved the stands I could see over to precinct 48 (and any attractive women) and we would block some of the view of the crabby precinct 47 judges.
Against Carmen's wishes I moved two stands to the middle between us and precinct 47. One leg from a stand fell off with a clatter and Tom came over to put it back on. Later as the voters using the remaining stands finished Tom moved them also. It was a better situation for all involved. Carmen got over it and agreed it was the right thing to do. And we partially blocked the sour faces of precinct 47.
The red headed woman from precinct 47 had her nose in other people's business. She came over several times to us give advice on how to run our precinct. During the lunch rush we had a little line when a group came all at once and the line was slowed when a few voters needed to fill out change-of-address or change-of-name cards. The red haired woman rushed over and in front of everyone started telling Christine and Pam how to run our precinct. Christine and Pam were busy right then with voters. No one on our team cared for this woman and how she handled things.
As I mentioned earlier, everyone on our team brought food to share among the team. Once you are sworn in as judge before 7 am you cannot leave the building until after the polls close at 8 pm. A long day. Tom said he was going to bring buffalo stew but brought seasoned chicken breasts and noodles instead. He caught crap from all of us as we were looking forward to the buffalo stew. The chicken was very good. Other people brought rolls, muffins, hummus. Christine brought a coffee maker and coffee. One woman baked a very large pan cake (I didn't know they made pans that big). The cake was very good and still moist at the end of the day even without a cover over the cake. The frosting was fantastic. All hand made. I brought fruit.
The two other precinct teams didn't bring any food, other than perhaps some personal food. As the day wore on we noticed they visited the food room and helped themselves to our food. A few nice women from precinct 48 donated a few dollars to Christine for the coffee. Once when I was in the food room the red haired woman was standing and eating out of the cake pan. She was by the refrigerator so I asked her to move so I could get inside. Instead of getting embarrassed at stealing our food she scrunched up against the counter so I could open the refrigerator door and she could keep feeding her face with our cake. Hmph!
Remember the man who, at the training session, asked all the questions over and over and was so concerned about fraud and following the rules? He was a member of precinct 48. They solved that problem by making him the greeter so he sat at the table at the front door. He may be a nice guy but he had burned some bridges by his training session questions and comments. A few hours into the day we noticed he was standing outside the door talking to someone. A no-no. And here he wasn't following the rules. After the second time Carmen went over and reminded him and the other greeters of the rules. We cackled and waited for him to go outside again so we could enter a complaint and maybe get him tossed out. He never did. We were a fun and happy team but at times could be a little mean. We decided after watching him schmooze the voters coming in and the voters leaving that he must either be a used car salesman or a shoe salesman. He certainly had the gift of gab. For a 50ish starting-to-bald man he certainly charmed the young women. Grrr!
Of course we had our complaints with the greeters. It seemed as if they didn't know what precinct the voter was in, the greeter would sent them our way when the voter's precinct was one of the other two. But then, we don't know how many voters came to us after being to another precinct.
In fact the very first two voters in the building when we opened at 7:30 am were sent our way. We couldn't find them in our registered voters list and thought, uh-oh, the provisional judge (me) had to get it sorted out. But then another team member asked their address, and as all the other judges were from the Whitefish area and not me - and Carmen and Christine lived in our precinct, they realized the voters were sent to the wrong precinct and we sent them to precinct 47. *whew!*
All in all I didn't have to act as provisional judge. Most times the other precincts had the track phone as they had questions for the election office. We all agreed that if any of us needed to make a provisional judge call to the election office all three provisional judges would make the call so we all got experience. I don't know if any of the other precincts made a provisional judge call.
Our team did make a few - what I consider - provisional judge calls to the election department and never got the other provisional judges to join in the call. I didn't get to make the calls as Carmen wanted to do something, and as I was busy handing out ballots, she got the phone and made the call. One was for a young woman about 18 yrs old (with a short blouse, low rise jeans, and ...is that a belly button ring?) who had a registration card but never got around to mailing it in. But Montana doesn't allow same day registration and she couldn't vote. We took her card to give it to the election office so she could vote this fall. Another guy wasn't in the voter registry even though his wife was listed. He claimed they lived at the same address. Carmen called the election office but it was no go.
The computer is a good thing. It caught ballots where the voter voted for more than one candidate or inserted completely blank ballots.We found that the county commissioner’s race caused problems. There were nine Republican candidates and many people would vote for three candidates. Huh? It said to vote for one candidate. Then I noticed above that it said “District 3”. So that is where the “three” came from!
A few voters were very old and asked to sit at a table to vote. A few asked us to carry their ballots and the privacy sleeve for them. Carmen and I usually did this as Carmen insisted two judges accompanied the voter so it didn’t appear that an election judge was up to no good with a voter. Not that would be possible in a busy open room like we were in.
Even before noon Pam was getting a little antsy. During the lulls she’d look at the clock and announce how many hours we had left. The closer it got to the election closing time of 8 pm, the morePam would look at the clock. She was more than ready for the election to be over. If she wasn’t looking at the clock another of her looks was to give me a look which meant, “you forgot to tell me the ballot number!” Oh... Oopps.
Our group was the fun group. I don’t know if we’d last if we had to work together several days in a row, but we had fun and everyone said they wanted to stay together for the November election. Carmen wasn’t sure if the election office would keep us as a team in November. We asked her to lobby for us to remain as a team.
Carmen, our chief judge, seemed like a nice sweet retired woman. By the end of the day we learned she had been kicked out of Catholic school in the 7th grade. “Details! Details! We want details!”
Apparently one of her female teachers was very mean and would pick on the quiet girls. Carmen said she was a quiet girl who one day had enough. She stood up and told the teacher what she thought of her and more. That led other girls to join in. They all were all sent to the principal’s office and all the other girls apologized. Carmen refused as she said she meant every word she said. So she was kicked out of school. Eventually they let her return to school.
Carmen lived in this district so we met some of her - now very old - school teachers when they came to vote. We also met a man who Carmen confided to us that she had a huge crush on when she was a teenager. “He was so handsome and such a stud.” She and her best friend knew when he would walk by their street each day and they would time their walk in order to meet him. That was many years ago as he now wheels a small oxygen tank along with him.
Christine was moving in a few weeks over to the east side (of the mountains) to Choteau, MT. She had bought a house originally built in 1914 which was remodeled after it had been moved from a ranch into town. The house had the typical small town’s large lot size for the yard. Even though she is retirement age Christine makes and sells stained glass windows. I forgot to get her web address.
Tom last lived in Florida before packing up and moving to Montana a few years ago. He is a independent physical therapist. Tom was a bundle of energy and free with his opinions. He was sometimes funny and sometimes abrasive. He claimed to be a conservative Republican but I doubt it. He also claimed to be the world biggest cynic and that was closer to the vibe he gave off. We all heard about the 2000 Florida election. He also was found of saying “Vote early and vote often”.
Tom was married three times and in the process of getting a divorce from his third wife, an airline attendant. She is Norwegian and apparently never adjusted to being out in the boonies. New York and the East Coast is more what she prefers. She and Tom own 40 acres way out of town near Star Meadows. We all think that with Tom'’s energy and talking he wore his wives out and that is why he got divorced each time.
Tom also liked to extol the virtues of out of state people moving to Montana and how he feels they improve the life here. He liked to make inflammatory comments about Montanans and life here. I think just to get a reaction from the other judges.
Pam was a retired navy wife and lived all over the world before returning to Montana. She defends Montana from those outsiders and she and Tom had a “friendly” banter going on throughout the day, each finding something to make their point and needle the other. Fortunately it didn’t get nasty as I was in the middle between the two.
Rene was the greeter at the front door so we didn’t see her much or get a chance to talk much with her.
The computer showed the count of voters and throughout the day during lulls Tom and I would calculate what percentage of eligible voters had voted. We had a total of 975 voters in our precinct. Tom was fond of saying “When we reach 20%, that'’s it. We’ll close everything down and go home.” We exceeded 20% mid afternoon and I predicted we would reach 33 1/3 percent. We were 8 votes short when the polls closed. Darn.
A few minutes before the polls closed a man came in, and as he registered he mentioned his wife was in the car with the kids and would come in after he voted. There was very little time left so we told him to go out and get his wife and kids and bring them in and we’ll watch the kids as they vote. This wouldn’t be the first time we had kids as their parents voted. Tom made sure the kids got a big "I voted" sticker after the kid's parent voted. This guy ran out to get his wife and kids but came back alone. He said one child was sleeping and his wife didn’t want to wake him. She never made it inside before the polls closed.
Our precinct got the last two voters before the polls closed. This was fitting as we had gotten the first two voters that morning. A young couple in good spirits. It seemed as if he had accompanied her to vote as she was more open and fun and he was more reserved about voting.
After the polls closed I got more food as I hadn't eaten in a while. Then we all took down the stuff. Tom and I folded up our voting booths and packed them into their individual suitcases.
Lots of other stuff had to be put away. The computer had to be deactivated and the printout with the vote totals printed. A long strip of paper with all the ballot totals for each party and the vote totals for each race. We all had to sign the paper in several spots. The paper trail and the computer’s memory card had to be removed and taken to the election office that night along with the ballots that had write-in votes. The computer detected the write-in votes and sorted the ballots into the bin on one side of the computer. The rest of the ballots went into the bin on the other side of the computer. Other stuff had to be taken to the election office. It all went into a large plastic bag that was sealed. Then all that went into a large brown envelope. This envelope and a number of other boxes and stuff had to have seals. We then all had to sign the seals. Lots of signing!
We didn’t finish packing and signing everything until 9:30 pm. Whew! A long day. We were all fading now. Some people - Tom - still had a long drive home. It was still light out as the sun had just set. In the MN winter I often never saw the sun as I was deep inside an IBM building all day away from a window. On this day I never saw the dark as it was light all day.
Carmen and Christine still had to drive to Kalispell to deliver to the election office the printout, computer memory cards, and other stuff we had sealed into the envelope.
During the day people gathering signatures for ballot issues for the November election were outside the building. I wanted to see what ballot issues they were for and perhaps sign the petitions. But by the time we all finished packing they were long gone.
I went to bed “early” (for me) that night and slept over 10 hours. What a day! But I’d do it again (as long as I wasn'’t assigned to the crabby team of precinct 47!)
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