About 3 times a year I am an assistant supervisor at one of our St. Louis County polling locations. What an assistant supervisor does is to arrive at the polling location by 5 AM and set up all the machines that the voters will use in voting. Yesterday we had 3 touchscreen machines and 3 paper ballot stations with a paper ballot scanner. From 6 AM until 7 PM, my job was to assist each person as they voted. The polling location that I serve is in a very large Methodist retirement center and many of the residents come down to their recreation room and vote. I have come to really enjoy helping these folks, talking with them and hearing some of their life stories. The other end of the spectrum was helping a couple of 18 year olds vote using the touchscreen machine. In both cases, this was their first opportunity to exercise their constitutional privilege of voting.
Unfortunately, our Republican supervisor got sick during the afternoon and had to leave. I stayed later than normal and helped prepare all of the materials and went with the Democrat supervisor to drop everything off. (Elections are very bi-partisan. Everything, and I mean everything, has to be signed off by both a Republican or Democrat worker. This includes the voting stub that everyone gets when they first come in, to the reports that must be assembled at the close of the polls)
So I arrived home at 8 PM, 15 hours after I left in the morning. A long day, but rewarding...rewarding because I had a very small part in a democratic process that insures that the people of this great country get to choose their leaders and vote on issues that come before them. Rewarding because I got to help a lot of seniors vote, and to applaud them for their interest in this process even at their advanced age. They haven't stopped being involved even though they are retired. Rewarding because I saw brand new voters vote for the first time. Young people who are plugging into the system as soon as they can, and will help our country stay the strong nation God has blessed it to be.
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