Electioneering

In the midst of the chaos that is working full time, there are moments of levity. One such moment happened today when I went to go vote. I go over the the Assembly District table to sign in and one of the poll clerks remarked, “we missed you this morning”. I told her that I missed the wake up call this morning after asking how the traffic had been throughout the day. I was surprised that two years after the last election I worked, she remembered me and I smiled. The process went smoothly even though the poll site had moved to the other building in the same Korean church not far from my house.

I was part of the poll worker program that the NYC Board of Elections runs. I was a poll worker from 2010-2013. At that time, I was still mired in uncertainty over how to proceed in my job search. I found out about the program and submitted an application in the Fall of 2010 but I didn’t realize that I had to do it sooner in order to be eligible to work the elections that year. I initially applied to be a Information Clerk, the ones who tell you which assembly and electoral district you’d belong to and direct them to the proper table. But they needed Spanish Interpreters instead. On the list of doubts, the inability to speak Spanish is pretty high.  My parents questioned why I would take that job knowing my abilities aren’t on par with the rest of my family. But I took the class and passed the test.

My first experiences with being a poll worker were primary elections. The day would usually begin around 3:30 AM as I had to be at the pollsite by 5AM and get the polls ready by 6. Each worker would get an hour break over the course of the day. The pacing of these days were slow and it seemed like 9PM would take an eternity. Conversations with fellow workers, the occasional book and finding whatever was on hand helped break up the boredom of not many people coming to the sites. Those were long days but days I would get paid for. But they were nothing compared to the madness of a general election.

This particular general election wasn’t your usual one, it was the 2012 presidential election. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Our block hadn’t seen the lights back on since before the storm. So I had to walk the streets from my house to the poll site in pitch darkness.At least I didn’t have to go too far on that cold November Tuesday. The group of us poll workers got the place set up despite the fact that it was cold outside and in the building itself. The person who brought us Dunkin Donuts and coffee was the hero of the day. The first member of my family to vote on her way to work was my sister. While the traffic was slow, I went in to vote. As the day went by, the traffic of people was steady through the day but would pale in comparison to the evening.  My dad came in to vote after work, he came to me  to say hello and then he said this to my fellow Information Clerk who was a woman and I’m not kidding, “he’s single”!  I got through that embarrassing moment after apologizing to her  and a few more neighbors popped by my table to say hello over the course of the evening. At 11PM, this long day’s journey into the night was finally over. As I walked home, I saw half the neighborhood get their lights back, just not our half. That glorious moment would come the following Friday afternoon. I got a small measure of schadenfreude the next morning in my dad’s reaction to the election results.

And so I got the call to come work last June. At the time, I was starting as an intern where I now work full time. I was committed to the internship and had to turn the Board of Elections down. It didn’t help that the poll sites that were still left were in Douglaston, Jamaica and Auburndale, difficult to get to by 5AM from East Elmhurst without leaving early. In that phone call that afternoon, I set in motion the events to come, even if I didn’t realize it that day.

But I’m grateful to the NYC Board of Elections for this experience. It was my first paid taste of working, even if it was only for two to three days of the year. I built up my teamwork skills which have come in handy now. This prepared me for handling many people while keeping calm at the same time. This is the skill that has gotten away from me as now I’m such a emotional wreck on a daily and weekly basis. I need to get that sense of calm back in my life and quickly. The song that this post is titled after is by Radiohead and the opening verse: “I will stop, I will stop at nothing”, “Say the right things when electioneering”, “I trust I can rely on your vote”. I’ve been on both sides of the civic spectrum, casting votes and helping others in trying to vote. It was a small step forward but in order to walk, you first have to learn how to crawl.