I am working as an elections voting assistant in my southern California city of Simi Valley in the governor recall election. The polling location where I am working has had a steady stream of Republican voters coming through. This is no surprise since we are a red dot in the blue sea of California; this is where the Ronald Reagan library is located.
The activity is not so busy. We opened on Saturday and had a total of about 25 voters; On Sunday we had about 50 and today we had about 140. Tomorrow (Tuesday) the final day, should have significantly higher turnout.
In California everyone gets a mail in ballot and I think most reasonable people will vote by mail as I did. About 30 percent of the voters who came to our polling location just came to drop off their mail in ballots. The rest insisted on voting in person and most of these were looking for a confrontation, coming in front end loaded and questioning everything. It is satisfying to see how quickly they morph back into just nice folks again when they see that they are treated with kindness and respect and their rehearsed queries don’t go anywhere. The images of a stolen election and voter fraud that has been a cause celebre in their insular world since last year have not materialized (YET!). That may change when Larry Elder gets stomped and he claims voter fraud, as he is now laying the groundwork in full Trump fashion.
We have had several poll observers and received a couple of complaints about little stuff such as the ballot bin being too close to the door, etc. There have been 1776 T-shirts, Blue lives matter, Freedom, Patriot T-shirts and other assorted standard Republican attire of the post Trump presidency. Almost all showed up with masks though and thats a good thing.
One voter made it clear to me that she was voting against the recall as I processed her ballot. On the way out the door she ran into a voter who was coming in with a “Trump — Fuck Your Feelings” shirt on. This was the only instance where cuss words were exchanged between voters. Why would someone wear this shirt at all let alone wear it to cast a vote in public?
Other than that It’s been kind of a bore but I’m happy to be involved. Hopefully no fireworks tomorrow.