Letter: Thank a poll worker when you vote this year

Posted 10/22/20

Please thank a poll worker when you go to the polls this year and thank the Town Clerk and his staff for their long days as well. 

Most people don’t realize that the Elections …

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Letter: Thank a poll worker when you vote this year

Posted

Please thank a poll worker when you go to the polls this year and thank the Town Clerk and his staff for their long days as well. 

Most people don’t realize that the Elections Commission and poll workers rise early in the day to be at their polling places by 6 a.m. Poll workers are not allowed to leave for the entire day, and their contact with outsiders is limited as well. They work a minimum of 15 hours that day. 

They get there in the dark to get organized. They set up the tables, chairs and voting booths, unlock, distribute, set up and assign the computers for each work station and set up signage for the public to open at 7:00. Each check-in computer is overseen by a Republican and a Democrat.

They all do their best to make your voting experience legal and efficient. It is a serious job with weighty responsibilities.

After the polls close, they must stay until the numbers are run and the number of check-ins match the number of ballots. There are spot checks on those numbers every hour throughout the day. If that number is off, even by one, they must find how that discrepancy happened. No one can leave, no matter how late, until the cause is found and it is rectified.

Then, at the end of the day, they make their reports, announce the numbers, break down the voting set-up and pack up and seal the computers and the ballots, taking inventories of every item.

They post the results on the door where the public can go to see them at the polling places after they are closed. And they leave the at the end of a long day like nothing has happened at all.

So, please, thank a poll worker when you go to the polls.

Marianne Bergenholtz
Bristol

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