Op-Ed: A Poll Worker's Experience
By Elek Kriszan '21 and Will Magrone '21
I woke up earlier than usual on Election Day. Much earlier. I got out of bed at 5:00, threw on the clothes I had laid out the night before, and put all the stuff I thought I would need into my backpack. I was one of the many GFA students who decided that helping the election run smoothly was important enough to spend the day doing.
Working at the polls was an incredible experience. Of course, it was grueling and repetitive; I sat in front of the Westport Library and handed out PPE for hours on end, but it was worthwhile. Seeing the ticker tape roll out of the polling machine at the end of the night to show how many votes every candidate received substantiated the election for me.
When I watched the news anchors talking about the election results and showing us numbers, I thought back to the people I met. The numbers I saw on national television were all reported by people like them: like the lady who printed the ticker with the vote tallies, or like her daughter who was going to stay up with the other vote counters in Town Hall until every absentee ballot was counted. Despite having differences, we all shared a common commitment to American democracy.
And that goes to say, it is very easy to lose sight of what an incredible system we have — what an incredible process plays out on Election Day. Millions of people go to their designated location, fill in a little circle, and put the paper in a machine, or just put it in an envelope. Then the thousands of people who committed to counting them or working at polling locations do their jobs and report the numbers. Then, toward the end of the night, statisticians, pollsters, and reporters work together to figure out who’s going to win which states, and tell the world what they predict. Millions of individual people, each with their own backgrounds, interests, and stories, all come together to decide who will become the next leader of the free world. Millions of people make a choice, taking time out of their days to try to change the future, as miniscule as their impact may be. It’s easy to choose not to vote, or not to participate in our democracy. The impact of your choice is not always apparent. It’s hard to invest yourself into this system that provides the rights and liberties we
cherish.
Everybody who voted will have a place in the history books, even if their names aren’t there. Every counted vote is what gives our leaders their mandate to lead—their legitimacy. I may not ever have my name written in a history book, but my helping hand (and my vote) will always be there. That vote, and my right to cast it, is what makes America and what it stands for so great. Being at the polls, at the heart of the process, I realised just how powerful that idea is.
