I volunteered as an Elections Official for the first time after hearing on NPR that Santa Clara County (where I live) was short by 500 pollworkers for the Special Election today. My boyfriend and I both took the day off work and got assigned together to Precinct 2107 in Palo Alto. We attended a 3 hour training course about a week and a half ago and then showed up at 6am this morning to set up. We worked a 15 hour day. It was long, it was tiring, it was even repetitive, but it was never once boring.
I thought it was a great experience and I would encourage others to try this if they are able. My job lets me bank comp time for all the extra hours of work I do and take them off later so that's what I did. They give you a small stipend for working, but given how much money my vacation is worth I essentially paid to work the polls today. But it was worth it. I felt like I was a part of democracy today like never before. I had interesting conversations with dozens of people. I even took a little break to climb on the jungle-gym in the playground at the school our polling place was at.
And the best part about it was that the entire polling station was non-partisan. I was through with worrying about democrats or republicans, progressives or conservatives, and who was going to support or oppose the various propositions. Today we were all just voters.
But now that it's all over? I can't wait to find out the results from my pet precinct!