Tip of the Spear: Summary from a 1st time poll observer

A friend of ours sent this to his email list, and I thought it was important enough to share here.  These folks are the unsung heroes of election day. Hopefully Photo ID will make life a lot less stressful for all involved, so please consider this for any upcoming election, especially this November.

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Yesterday, I volunteered to be a Poll Observer and was sent to a High School in the Waukesha area.



I missed all the online and locally provided training, but on Monday evening was given assess to training material on the WI GOP web-site. I spent about an hour reviewing the material and showed up to work Tuesday morning with another observer, who had previous experience.



The purpose of this email is just to let everyone know that I really enjoyed doing this little bit of volunteering and want to encourage everyone to consider getting involved doing something like this in November.

We are talking about attending a training session and spending a day at an assigned poll location.



I must say, that I was surprised by many aspects of the voting process. When you are behind the scenes, you become aware and amazed at the process, and all that goes on.

I spent much of the day watching the new voter registration and address change process taking place.



Everyone, the poll workers and supervisor, were pleasant and willing to explain the process and procedures to me. They knew this was my first time as a poll worker.

As a watched the process, I did notice the new registration workers were not completing one bit of information on the form that was required. So I took the issue to the supervisor, who addressed the situation with the poll workers appropriately to my satisfaction.

I think there may have been one other item that should have been addressed, but I couldn't remain within reading distance of the poll workers, due to a complaint to the supervisor by an ACLU Representative, dressed in all black.



The day went fast and I spent some time reviewing the training material as reference data as the day went on.

Closing only took about an hour, so we were done about 9pm.



Everything went great, I learned much. My only problem was my sore feet and back.



Would I do it again, oh yes, but I think I'd like to be placed at a more hostile (democratic) environment.

I'm sure I could get a few people irritated with me by finding cheating.

Yesterday, you could sense and actually notice those people trying to scam the process, several were turned away.



I felt like I made a contribution and felt really good about the day.

Many poll workers and observers, took a vacation day from work to be there yesterday.

R