For most of last week I served as a poll watcher for the Georgia Democratic Party during early voting in the Savannah area. I thought my experiences there might be of interest for those who are curious about the progress of the Georgia election.
I do not live in Georgia, but Georgia is one of a few states that allow out-of-state poll watchers. I first worked there during the 2020 election. My experience at that time was pretty uneventful. The two polling places where I was assigned were both well run, and everyone was friendly, polite, and professional.
Despite that, I wasn’t fully confident that my experience this time would be the same. In fact, my girlfriend, who had served with me as a poll watcher in 2020, refused to come with me this time around. She was convinced that the voting environment would be changed in Georgia, and that we’d be threatened by angry, armed, election deniers; something like the kind of thing we’ve been hearing about in Arizona.
I’m happy to say that I saw nothing like that during my period of poll watching. Just as before, everyone was polite, professional, and friendly. I did not witness a single instance of anyone being angry or abusive. A major part of the credit for this has to go to the professionalism of the Georgia poll workers, which, at least at the polling sites I was assigned to, were nearly all black women. This was also my experience in 2020.
All that said, a couple of things were different this time around. First, my impression was that if anything, interest in voting is as great or greater than it was in 2020. At the polling site where I was assigned for most of the week, there was a steady line of voters from opening until just an hour before closing. I think one measure of the interest in the election was the number of (mostly elderly) voters with disabilities or otherwise needing assistance who made the effort to show up and vote.
To me though, the most interesting part of my experience this time was the presence of Republican poll watchers. In 2020, although I knew of the existence of Republican poll watchers, I never encountered one in any of my poll watching assignments. This time my experience was the opposite,and there was not a single hour when I was not sitting next to a Republican counterpart.
Somewhat surprisingly, this turned out to be the most rewarding part of my experience in Georgia. I enjoyed all the conversations I had with the people I sat next to. Most of them were old white guys like myself, and we connected over things like our military experience during the Vietnam war, work history, etc. In one week, I probably had more extended conversations with Republicans than I had had in the previous ten years. Rather than the stereotype of people immersed in a MAGA/QAnon bubble, they impressed me more as what I generally consider to be traditional Republicans. For example, more than one volunteered to me that they have no use for Trump, and think he is too divisive.
That does not mean, though, that we had a common view of political or voting issues, or the purpose of poll watching. For Democrats, our training to be poll watchers emphasizes the need to ensure that every voter is able to vote and is not interfered with in any way. This is not the focus for Republicans, who are primarily concerned with guaranteeing the integrity of the election. More than one, for example, told of me of their belief that in the 2020 election there were trucks that pulled up to drop boxes in the middle of the night and stuffed them with ballots. (This seemed to have always taken place in Atlanta). While I was observing whether any voter was turned away from the polls, my Republican counterparts were periodically checking the vote numbers that were displayed on the (Dominion!) voting machines and ballot scanners to determine if there were any discrepancies. They also made a point of witnessing the times when the ballot drop boxes were emptied at the end of the day and when they were checked at the beginning of the day to ensure they were empty. (One of the changes that occurred in the Georgia voting law was to move drop boxes inside polling sites so that there is no time when they are unattended or available outside of voting hours).
The Republicans I met seemed to be reassured by their experiences monitoring the voting process. My hope is that the changes in the law, and the increased first-hand experience with the process itself will improve their confidence in the integrity of this election. We’ll see.