Reply #20: I was the Poll Worker Training Coordinator for the Orange County Registrar of Voters, LONG DAY.

[cherokeeprogressive]

Election days were the culmination of everything we worked for, and they were not only hectic; they were long, frustrating, and the REAL hard work ended sometimes 22 hours after the day started.

Because I was in charge of training upwards of 6,000 poll workers in Orange County, I was put in charge of the Poll Worker Help Line on election days. The reasoning was hey, I wrote the training materials, hired the trainers and trained 'em to train others, so my trainers and I should be there on the phone bank if they had any problems during the day. So on election day we manned the phone bank starting at 5 a.m. and stayed there until about 9 p.m., when they were finally finished wrapping up operations.

After that, we'd hustle our asses downstairs, and help receive the returning ballot boxes and JBC's, which were the control units for the network of voting machines. We received stuff from over 1100 polling places in the matter of a couple hours, and it was an "all hands on deck" evolution.

I miss it though, kinda. There was a sense of pride that I'd not encountered in a workplace since I served in the Navy.

I would add that during my first election as a trainer, the phone bank answered upwards of 16,000 trouble calls. My last election as the Training Coordinator, after hiring and training the trainers, we took less than 5,000.

Facilitating democracy is an awesome job, and an awesome responsibility. I wish more people would get involved in operating polling places. At the end of the day, there's a sense of satisfaction and a sense that you've been a part of something MUCH larger than yourself.