I know because I was one of them! It started with being at our precinct at 5:30 a.m. From that moment on it was intense activity. We had to have everything ready for the doors to open at 7. There were 45 minutes to 1 hour waits at our precinct, which wasn't too bad from what I was told! Since Florida had it's little "hanging chad" incident a few years ago, they wanted everything to go smoothly. All of us workers learned very exacting procedures that would create a paper trail if it was ever needed. I ended up having one of the jobs that was the most labor intensive, but at least it was a sitting down job. My legs and feet have gotten so bad, that I couldn't have taken standing on my feet all day. My co-worker and I worked all day with very few breaks. Wow, what a job. By 5:00 we were finding it hard to smile and be cheery to every single person (and certain other poll workers who had difficult personalities). But in general, we found most voters pleasant and quite eager to vote. It was interesting to see the cross section of society that came in....little old ladies, big burly biker dudes, blue collar workers, lawyer-type business men and women, medical professionals, teachers, new citizens, and I think we even saw "Joe the plumber"! It was cool to welcome first time voters, most of them "newly minted adults". The first voter in line was there at 5:45 a.m., a young man who was a first time voter. He wanted to make sure he got to vote, to be the first one and have his vote count. Did they all know what a privilege it is to be in a country where they could easily, freely and privately vote? I hope so.
Oh - and one new voter was our daughter, Dawn! She DOES know what it means. Really cool.
Yes, it was a long day and I'm glad that I was a part of it. Just wish it'd gone differently for the candidates, but that is another subject for another time.
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