PSA

by · November 6, 2012

Patrick

Patrick is a mid-40 year old geek with an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a master's degree in Information Systems. Nothing he says here has anything to do with the official position of his employer or any other institution.

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24 Responses

  1. Will Truman says:
    November 6, 2012 at 2:53 pm

    Right on.Report

  2. Damon says:
    November 6, 2012 at 3:15 pm

    Thanks be to God for them. The are willing to interact the general population. Something I’m loath to do. 🙂Report

  3. North says:
    November 6, 2012 at 3:22 pm

    Here Here! The unsung saints of the Republic.Report

  4. MikeSchilling says:
    November 6, 2012 at 3:33 pm

    I did that once. A co-worker ran a polling place every election (in fact, it was in her garage), and asked for volunteers to fill out her staff. It was boring, but quite pleasant. It helped that I was with friends and that the line never got beyond about five people. The worst part was sitting in a lawn chair for over twelve hours; my back didn’t recover for days.Report

  5. Mark Thompson says:
    November 6, 2012 at 3:36 pm

    Indeed. One thing that struck me at my polling place in Central Jersey was that each poll worker with whom I interacted seemed to be a somewhat recently naturalized immigrant (one of seemingly eastern European extraction, the other of South Asian). I don’t know why, but this warmed my heart a little.Report

  6. Tom Van Dyke says:
    November 6, 2012 at 3:36 pm

    The Missus has been doing it for years. I’ll forward your regards, Pat.Report

  7. Kolohe says:
    November 6, 2012 at 3:55 pm

    Ditto.

    Having attended some third world fledging democracy elections, it’s the conscientious, underpaid and overworked poll workers that make the whole system run at all.Report

  8. Kazzy says:
    November 6, 2012 at 4:27 pm

    The two times I voted, I was greeted by appropriately enthusiastic and cheerful people. One was for the ’08 election and was at about 5PM in a fairly empty polling station. The other was for a local scoreboard election at about 8PM, shortly before polls closed, at an overrun station. In both places, folks were eager to help without being annoying. Well done all around.Report

    • Sierra Nevada in reply to Kazzy says:
      November 6, 2012 at 4:53 pm

      I love how your post starts out “The two times I voted..”

      Shoulda held the suspense longer.Report

      • Glyph in reply to Sierra Nevada says:
        November 6, 2012 at 5:06 pm

        I voted twice, once for Romney and once for Obama.

        Everybody kept saying I’d be ‘throwing my vote away’ on Johnson, and I don’t like littering, so I went with complete and utter vote negation instead.

        Just like the votes of most individual Americans who vote for one of the majors, only to be immediately cancelled out by their opposite number – probably the guy who walked into the booth just after them.Report

      • Kazzy in reply to Sierra Nevada says:
        November 6, 2012 at 9:32 pm

        Heh. I should also clarify that I voted for a “schoolboard” election, not a “scoreboard” election.

        I was too young in 2000. I was of age in 2004 but because of the way my college handled addresses and NJ’s rule barring absentee ballots being sent to PO Boxes, I never got mine. So ’08 was the first chance I got to vote in the real deal. As new homeowners, we took the time to vote in the schoolboard election. And we just returned from casting our ’12 ballots.Report

  9. Lyle says:
    November 6, 2012 at 6:29 pm

    There is the federal motor voter law (National Voter Registration act of 1993) Of course the Neofederalists (Republicans) think it is evil also. When you update your drivers license the clerk is supposed to ask if you would like your voter registation updated. It worked in Tx even when I changed counties. Now if you are like a lot of folks and don’t bother to update the drivers license address or your auto registration address, then you of course are open to getting a ticket, although it must be the case that a lot do not do it since I get asked every so often is this your current address when showing my drivers license. I guess a lot of folks don’t update their records when they more even if it can be done online now.Report

  10. FridayNext says:
    November 6, 2012 at 10:58 pm

    I just moved out of Florida where I was an election judge off and on for 6 years as my schedule allowed. As with Jury Duty, I came out with a higher respect for our system and our country than when I went in. No matter what other nonsense is going on in either place, there were always solid, normal American citizens of all classes, educations, religions, (etc etc, you know the list) who took their jobs very seriously and did them well. At least they did them well more often than not. Far more often.

    And don’t lay on the admiration too thick. I got paid pretty well. For a day’s work, plus training, I pulled down almost $200 an election there at the end as I worked up to assistant clerk for the precinct and got certified on the accessibility voting machine. Not king’s ransom, but it kept me in textbooks for a semester.Report

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