“Photo ID. cellphones turned off. No headphones, headsets, earbuds. All electronic devices, OFF.”
She was shouting, inflaming the line of already irritated citizens, shouting at them like they were middle schoolers, shouting because she was so jacked up from working the last day of early voting in Georgia. It was 5 p.m. The polls closed at 7.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
“Ten more!” she shouted, counting them in.
Outside to inside, weary folks shuffled into the concrete industrial building, rolling their eyes, shaking their heads. I couldn’t tell: Was it from the shouting or the shock of seeing another long line. Someone was gonna go off.
Crowd-control stanchions snaked around the reception area like the TSA. Echoes reverberated off the polished cement. My feet were killing me.
At team meeting 6 a.m., our station manager announced some changes.
“Sorry to report,” he began, “no clapping for first-timers. Too distracting. Deters other voters from concentrating.”
The entire room of seasoned poll workers sighed, robbed of one of the few joys of the work.
“I know, I know.” He shook his head. “Came down yesterday, Headquarters.”
He paused to check his sticky note.
“Another reminder,” he said. “Limit conversation with voters. Possible poll watchers gathering information. We just don’t know.”
“Seriously?!” The comment erupted from a young guy, newbie like me.
“And remember,” the manager hammered this one, over and over. “Whatever happens, don’t touch another person’s ballot.”
###
“Welcome. To the right please. Line’s moving fast now.”
With faux enthusiasm and an outstretched arm, I acted like it was a clearance sale and they were in for a bargain.
“Love that sweater.”
I did like the sweater, but I was really checking for political ads, logos, anything smacking of campaigning. Only two so far in all of early voting, both compliant. Uh oh. There’s one now, smack in the middle, eight wrapped lines of tired people. How’d I miss him?
“S’cuse me, s’cuse me.” I slunk through the crowd so as to not call him out. Stood close. “Sir, you can’t wear that inside the voting room.”
Soon as the words came out, I froze, closed in by the pack.
“What?!” He looked down at the bold red letters, candidate photo, likely purchased for this day. He glared at me, down at his shirt, up, then down, bobbing disbelief. Me? I stood there, stunned, afraid of what might happen.
“Take it off? Really?”
“They won’t let you vote. Considered campaigning.” I made myself look goofy, wavy smile, scrunched shoulders, cocked head, arms out helpless. It wasn’t my rule. I loved his shirt, loved that he was peacocking his candidate.
“Have a jacket you can put over it?”
“Nope.”
“Turn it inside out? That’d work.”
We looked around, he and I. The crowd was all eyes, 40 to 50 gawkers. How would this would turn out? In a flash, he lifted his shirt, exposing a scrawny bare chest. When the shirt got stuck at the armpits, I barked, “Wait. Wait. I’ll take you to the restroom.”
“But….” He looked at the mob, held out his arm.
“You won’t lose your place, I promise.”
We didn’t make it to the men’s room. As soon as I slid back the heavy hall curtain, I found myself watching as this 6-foot giant whipped off his shirt and flipped it inside out, gentle as a kitten.
###
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Can’t bring that drink inside.”
“But, it’s a sippy cup.” She pushed the cup with its glittery Paw Patrol cartoon characters up close to my face. “Please, she’ll have a fit if you take it.”
I knew the grumpies inside working verification were on their last nerve. At least they got to sit down. Grumbling about last-minute voters, people sneaking iPhones to look stuff up. Once, just after our line-lecture about no electronics, Marimba, Marimba vibrated the voting room followed by a chirpy greeting, “Hello?” Curious voters peaked over their touchscreens seeking the culprit. Right away, those ladies came stalking out, hollering at us, like we were the ones breaking the rules.
“Okaaay,” I leaned close, whispered. “Just keep it in the stroller.”
###
“Need an escort for the restroom!”
A voter, mid-30s, green hair. Bathrooms, typically off-limits to the public, were in the bowels of the building where ballots were processed.
We walked down the corridor, and I struggled not to small-talk.
“Has it been this busy all day?”
I sighed, but Green Hair kept on.
“How long’s the line been?”
Reasonable questions, I thought, but quipped, “I know, right?” adding a friendly head bobble. It was all I could think of. She huffed to the toilet, clucking.
“I’ll wait here,” I called out.
Glad to sit for a hot second, I folded forward, brain-drained. I should have canvassed with my friend. Yeah, we’re getting paid $15 an hour with no overtime. Worked 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. yesterday, minus an hour for lunch. A bullet of clapping shot down the hall, then the singsong “First-time voter!” I smiled. Was this their protest, the biddies?
Green Hair emerged, insistent, “What was that about?”
I shrugged, dragged up out of the chair, walked us back to the snaky line.
###
Break time, thank God. After the polls closed, we still had to hand-count. That’s right: 7,638 paper ballots that day, to double-check the scanners. Something smelled. I took a whiff of myself. It wasn’t body odor but the smell of 12 Popeye’s snack boxes from lunch that saturated my sweater.
The murmur of the voting room meant things were starting to die down. Finally.
Until the sharp shout of a poll worker rang through the complex. “Manager!!”
The place got deadly silent, and I peaked inside to see.
Perched at the walker of an elder, the manager was holding out his arms, holding them to block folks from interfering. She’d dropped her ballot, slid across the slick floor. She was reaching, reaching, reaching. A crowd gathered — voters, poll workers, poll watchers — frantic faces. We wanted to help. It was the right thing. Wasn’t it?
Terri Leonard is an emerging Pushcart-nominated writer with recent publications in Hunger Mountain Review, Litmosphere, Stone Canoe, The Madison Review and other literary journals. She working on a novel of historical fiction about a group of teens growing up queer in the rural South in the 1980s. She lives in Decatur, has a prior career as a medical anthropologist and now works as a yoga therapist.
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