A day in the life of an election official. As we deal with the fallout from the most contentious election I can remember, many people have decided to question the veracity of vote totals and even the votes themselves, the ballots themselves. Many people make assumptions about how the process of vote counting is completed. They make these assumptions because they have little to no experience with the process besides the act of casting their own individual ballot. When you take a step back from that micro microcosm and you look at the logistics of vote counting, the process, although not perfect because it is run by humans, actually has significant safeguards in place.

So I thought I would take some time to go through a day in the life, although it does cover a little bit more than that one specific day. First, a little background. In 2006 my sister could cast her first ballot. I had come to that point two years earlier since my 18th birthday fell on a non-election year. My dad wanted to help my sister and I as we became voters. In the process, he started researching and he learned more about the process and wanted to partake in the election process. So in the primaries of 2008, he worked as a poll manager for the first time.

Now a little bit about nomenclature. Greenville County poll managers are the regular workers and the hierarchy starts at the bottom with the poll managers. Next come the assistant clerks and the clerks. The assistant clerks and the clerks have a additional responsibility which is what I will describe for you in this post.

Having been convinced by my father, I decided to become a poll worker myself at the age of 21 for the 2008 general election. I loved it from the very first moment. From general election 2008 until the general election of 2012, I worked every election and planned to do that in perpetuity. However, I started working at the bank and no longer had the flexibility of the days off. When I returned to teaching, I sort of fell out of the habit due to the overwhelming, or seemingly overwhelming, responsibilities. I have always kept it in the back of my mind that I wanted to return, but I wanted to return as a clerk, which I had gotten to do for the general election of 2012.

Fast forward now to approximately 10 or 11 days before the general election. Dad texts me. The election office had a pressing need for clerks. He understood the workload I had and thus, understood if I couldn’t. In my gut, I knew I needed to. So, on short notice. I said yes and let the election office know. I also took off the following Wednesday after election to recover.

Now that I have gone all around the point, I’ll get to Election Day. The training for poll workers of all ranks begins far in advance of Election Day. The first thing that every poll manager, assistant clerk, and clerk must complete the series of online training courses. In addition, all poll workers attend an in-person class to review all job responsibilities and duties. Most times I have done this, I completed the class weeks in advance. This time, I completed it only eight days prior. This year, we also had an additional hands on training for a new voter check in system. So I returned on Thursday, the week before Election Day for that training.

One last thing occurs prior to Election Day itself. This responsibility lies solely with the assistant clerks and the clerks. Each of those election officials go to the election office to pick up materials. These materials include everything necessary for running the election at the precinct, at least it did prior to the new system. The election office delivers some items directly to the precinct now.

This day will comprise approximately 24 hours, beginning on Monday evening depending on the clerk. Some clerks go to their polling location the day prior to set up all the equipment that does not need to be secured. That may mean signs, tables, privacy screens, directional marking and other such items. Due to my schedule, I did not do this, although I did make sure to contact my polling location, a local elementary school, to ensure the timing of the opening of the building so that I and all of my workers could enter and set up the polling location to be ready for elections to start at 7:00 a.m. on the dot.

Monday evening
That night, I spent some time making sure that I would have everything that I needed, from writing materials to food. Most importantly, I set out my clothes. I got everything ready because Election Day dawns bright and early for the clerk. The previous time that I worked as a clerk, I arrived approximately half an hour before my workers and had the ability to begin to bring in equipment.

4:30-5:15am
This time I woke up at 4:30, hit snooze only once and then got on the treadmill for my one mile run, which coincidentally I also did eight years ago. After finishing the run, I took a quick shower, grabbed all my belongings, hopped in the car and drove to the polling location.

5:35-5:45am
When I arrived, I found a gate blocking the driveway. I had not expected that and hoped that the plant manager, when she arrived, would open this gate as well. Also, when I arrived, I found at least four voters lined up in their car waiting. At 5:40, one of them even decided to get out of her car, knock on my window and ask about handicapped accessibility.

5:45-6:59am
When the plant engineer arrived and opened the gate, I pulled up close to the door and began unloading. The first hour always passes quicker than expected. As a clerk, I have the responsibility of opening all of the machines according to a strict protocol with copious safeguards in place, seals and keys and documentation. I open the scanner, all of our ballot marking devices and the poll books for voter check in. While meticulously opening and documenting the opening process, my workers hug signs on the wall, placed curbside voting signs outside, set up privacy screens around the ballot marking devices, and placed directional markings on the floor. Shortly before 7, I called over all of my workers and demonstrated the new epollbook system before completing the check in notification for the county election office right at 6:59am.

7:00am
We loudly declare the polls open. Two workers escort the first voter over to the empty ballot box to have her witness the emptiness before we secure the bin in the scanner.

7:01am-1:15pm
Through this time, we have our longest and most consistent line. The process goes as follows. The voter steps up to the check in table. If the voter has not already presented identification, the poll manager at the check in table will ask for it. Next, the poll manager verifies the id by comparing the picture to the voter before them. Third, the poll manager enters the voter’s name in the electronic poll book to verify voter eligibility both in the county and the precinct. The poll book holds the records for the county by accessing a local server not connected to the internet, which allows the poll manager to see if the voter is eligible in that precinct, if they have come to the wrong location, or if they have already requested or cast an absentee ballot. If the poll manager cannot locate the voter in the poll book, the manager sent the voter to the resolution table where I would do my best to help them. I will return to that in a moment. Once everything checks out, the poll manager prints the ballot and presents it to the voter. This printed ballot has only a barcode which identifies the specific election and the ballot style the voter receives. (Some precinct lines are drawn in ways which split districts for local elections like school board and county councils, for example.)

The voter now heads to the ballot marking device escorted by a poll worker who gives them a brief primer on how to insert the ballot and navigate the selection pages. At this point the poll worker steps away from the device to provide privacy to the voter. On some occasions, prompted by the voter, two poll workers will approach the voter to provide the requested assistance limited to navigation of the page. The poll workers, or anyone else the voter requests, can assist only with the process; they can give no influence as to the selection.

Once the voter completes their selections and chooses print ballot, the ballot marking device prints the voter’s selections on the ballot the voter had inserted into the machine. Before walking over to the scanner, the voter has one more opportunity to review the ballot. If they discover an error, we issued them another ballot. I took their first ballot, write SPOILED in large letters across the ballot before placing the spoiled ballot in a specially marked envelope which I would return to the county election office at the end of the night.

If the voter is assured that the ballot marking device marked the correct selections, the voter proceeded to the scanner, placed their ballot face down in the scanner and retrieved their “I voted” sticker once the ballot disappears into the scanner.

While my poll managers processed the majority of voters, problems would arise. To maintain, the flow of voters, the poll manager directed the prospective voter to the resolution table, my station. During the busy morning, I ventured away from the resolution table only once or twice. Most of the morning I spent helping voters with difficult to solve problems and on hold with the county election office hot line. Before I describe some of the issues that arose, I must mention that my precinct hosted a poll watcher from opening to closing. Each party represented on the ballot can have two watchers present. Individual candidates can also have watchers present. Party watchers take precedence over candidate watchers in the event that an excess number appears. I had just the one. When the poll watcher arrived, I asked her to present her official registration information and ID> Once confirmed, she had access to publicly available information such as the voter count and the interactions of poll managers and voters. Due to the layout of our precinct, she could not easily be within hearing range of the check in table without positioning herself too close to the ballot marking device so she positioned herself within earshot of the resolution table.

All the voters who came to the resolution table came because the poll manager could not find them on the new electronic poll books. If the voter arrived at the wrong precinct, we gave them the correct location, including the address and driving directions. Thus, the people that came to me had some sort of hiccup with their registration. One such problem occurred when a voter moves within the county within 30 days prior to the election. In that case, the voter formerly registered in my precinct casts a paper failsafe ballot that includes all nationwide, statewide, and countywide races. Precinct specific races did not appear. A few people had moved between counties within the state. These voters follow a different process. These voters I directed one of two places. They could return to their old precinct in the other county and cast a failsafe ballot, complete a change of address form, or they could go directly to the voter registration office to vote the full ballot and update address information. The most heartbreaking issue I had to deal with was the voter’s registration date. South Carolina law states that a voter must complete the registration at least 30 days prior. For 2020, anyone who registered after October 4 was not eligible to vote in the 2020 election. Before I got to the point of turning a potential voter away, I exhausted all my options which often meant waiting on hold with the county election office. This dedicated group of workers logged each call with the precinct, clerk and voter name. After this, the election office worker used their expanded search system to identify the potential issue. Only once could they not find a prospective voter. After receiving their guidance, which they also logged into the system. I processed the voter on my end by either sending them to the correct precinct, presenting them with a failsafe or provisional ballot, or unfortunately informing the voter of their inability to vote in that election. All of this the poll watcher documented as well.

During this busy time, I stepped away from the resolution table only twice. During my absence, my assistant clerk manned the table. I used these breaks to step into the break room for some coffee and food as well as to circulate through the area to check on my workers.

1:15-6:00pm
Once we got through the steady line, my workers rotated, one or two at a time, to take 15 or 20 minutes to eat. Because we had a full staff, we maintained workers at every position, even through the rotations.

I did not take a specific break for lunch but did on a couple of occasions sit in the break room to eat a quick bite before heading out to resolve issues that arose.

Throughout this time, we kept up a steady trickle of voters. At no point during these hours was our precinct absent at least one voter somewhere in the process. While I had hoped for even more, the slight uptick that came around five thirty, I found encouraging.

6:00-6:45pm
At this point, with even fewer voters present, I took the opportunity to review the manual and the closing procedures. My county has updated the machines they use so this would be my first time closing them. I also mentioned to my workers that they could begin pulling up the painter’s tape directional arrows. This caused a bit of comedy when a voter entered and I mouthed to one of the worker’s to stop. She stopped and stepped away but another worker saw the partial arrow and bent down to peel it up. The first worker relayed the message. The process repeated itself four times before everyone else realized. It gave us a good laugh.

6:45-6:59pm
A few of my workers began cleaning up the break room. They did such a great job that the only thing I did was walk in and grab my bag. That meant I accidentally left my reusable container with my oatmeal for breakfast that I never had time to eat and my Contigo coffee mug. Oops. As the minutes advanced towards 7, all of us both hoped for a last minute rush of voters and also for the clock to count down to 7 so we could begin closing the polls.

7:00pm
At the exact second, I stepped outside, scanned the parking lot and seeing no one, declared the polls closed.

7:01-7:45pm
Everyone moved into top speed. I first followed the manual to begin the closing procedures on the ballot marking devices which included removing seals to place in a specially marked envelope which I would later hand deliver to the county election office. Once I finished that, I headed over to the scanner. Before I finished with the process on the scanner my team had packed up all seven of the ballot marking device. At the same time, a couple other workers retrieved all of the outdoor signs and indoor informational signs.

By the time I and my assistant clerk finished with all the steps for closing the scanner, only the assembly of the transfer case and the packing of the epollbooks remained. A couple workers packed up the poll books while the remainder, save one who helped me with the transfer case, signed the three totals tapes printed by the scanner. That one worker stood by me and read items off the transfer case checklist while I placed the requisite items and those items only in this case which I would soon hand deliver to the county office.

Soon all that remained was a little bit of blank ballot calculation. It took me a little while because my brain did not want to cooperate but I got it done and at that point my team brought all of the equipment out to my car. With an unexpected send off of applause, I headed to the district office. All of my workers save for the assistant clerk, had finished for the night.

7:45-8:00pm
My assistant clerk headed to the county office election storage building to drop off the ballot marking devices while I headed across to the main office with the rest of the items.

8:00-8:15pm
I waited in a long line of cars, all of the other clerks, to pull up and have dedicated workers empty everything out of the car except for the transfer case. At this point, I realized that I had made extra work for myself by bringing back some things like signs and cleaning supplies that the election office had delivered. Whoops.

8:15-8:40pm
I found a parking spot and headed inside the building with my transfer case. Upon joining the line of clerks, I discovered that Dad had arrived merely six or eight people ahead of me. He gave up his place in line to come stand by me which made the wait pass quickly. The line took us into a well organized room where another set of election workers went through the transfer case to double check that the necessary items made their way back to the office while sorting them into their proper places.

8:40-45pm
Once the worker checking my case signed off, all I needed to do was find out what to do with the extra material I happened to accidentally bring back. After asking a couple people, we found out and Dad helped me bring it in.

8:45pm-EOD
At this point, I had completed my work for the day so I made a Starbucks stop and headed home.