Observations from a NJ Poll Worker (Primary Election)
Yesterday I worked at the polls in my small town. Generally all registered voters were provided with mail-in ballots and a majority of those voting utilized this option. The voters who didn't mail in their vote showed up at the polls. They were offered provisional ballots which both the ballot and its envelope.
We had less than 125 voters all day (6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.). We had a "back up" of 3-4 voters maybe twice as we only had four voting "tables" for the entire town.
Our community is very diverse: whites, African-American, Latino, Arab and the ballots and instructions are in English and Spanish.
That being said, I watched about half the voters spend 15 minutes on completing the envelope. Not the ballot. Basic stuff like name, residential address, choice of drivers license or last 4 digits of Social Security #, gender, choice of party. They were generally confused. It wasn't small printing or something exculpatory. The ballot -- many voters had to be instructed on filling in the circle next to their choice of candidate, like SATs. I get it; a lot of people don't have much experience with forms due to their (lack of) education.
Some encouraging observations: All but 3 voters were aligned with the Democratic Party; most of them had not declared party affiliation prior to voting and chose accordingly.
As for Trump's assertion that the vote would be "rigged" in November, our team was scrupulous in record-keeping. We counted all the provisional ballots AND the envelopes before the polls opened and periodically counted during the voting hours and took a final count and RECORDED how many ballots/envelopes were left over when we closed the polls.
Every voter who showed up was allowed to vote provisionally.
= new reply since forum marked as read
People don't vote that often. Some only vote once every four years, some hardly ever. Some people are there for the very first time. We all hear a lot of yammering about this candidate or that one, a lot of anger over how voting should be done etc. Those of us who vote all the time - well we aren't nervous or confused, it all just rolls off our backs.
But people who don't pay much attention - probably don't read many newspapers either - those are the Americans who need to be schooled on how easy it is once you get used to doing it. When they realize that some people are trying to confuse them on purpose so they'll give up and not vote - that should make voters even more determined.
I'm glad the poll workers are diligent in helping these voters understand how the process works. Once people understand it, they won't be confused or afraid of it.
