Poll Worker

It was a long day yesterday, working the polls. Overall it was routine, signing people in, handing out ballots, fixing little problems with the scanner, periods of boredom when the voting was slow, and it was very slow for this primary with no major things to be decided. Next door in district 50, Francine Busby unfortunately was beaten in her runoff against Bilbray, the Republicans still opting for yet another corrupt one of their own than a darn Democrat.

Meeting some of those Republicans yesterday was interesting. They are my neighbors, of course, since I live in a very Republican area. The Republican ballots outnumbered the Dem ballots 2 to 1. Some of these people I know and respect, even though I disagree with their politics. Some of them were just fucking morons, although of course as a poll worker you have to keep those opinions to yourself.

But there was the guy whose grandfather was an immigrant that spoke eight languages, and of course learned English when he came to the U.S., through Ellis Island and being quarantined, amd made a fortune in real estate. So why did we have election materials in Spanish, why can’t those damned immigrants learn English and be legal instead of illegal? What are they complaining about low pay for? He ranted for several minutes before he was told to take it outside. By that point I had simply turned my back on him and pretended to be reading something, fuming silently at his bigotry and ignorance.

There was the mother of the household that rented the house whose garage we were set up in, coming down on one of her kids who had missed a school assignment, by grounding him, making him babysit a friend’s children for free, taking all his things out of his room, and forcing him to go to a city council meeting instead of his planned choir event. One of things I could understand, but all that, for missing an assignment, and then telling us about it so openly and proudly all the while smiling and saying, “oh, the poor thing”. She rewards her kids for good behavior with money, but this one was of course always in the negative, “owing money for breaking the other kids things”. Yeah, I bet any time one of the other brothers breaks something, it ends up this poor kid’s fault. Won’t she be suprised when this poor kid ends up doing drugs or worse in high school, and never speaking to her again as an adult.

She was a very pleasant woman, even made us cookies in the afternoon. But my heart just broke at the way this poor kid was being treated, and to her this was all just good parenting. I don’t know how this kid will turn out, but I really cringed every time she would come out all smiles and tell us about some additional punishment she had thought up for him.

It got to where I could mostly tell who was who by how they dressed and acted. The Republicans, always smartly dressed and groomed (the wife of this home also made her husband change shoes twice since she didn’t like the ones he wanted to wear to work, and all the shoes were of course in the garage since no shoes were allowed in the home). Always with the same tight attitude, no humor allowed. Wanting to vote in the big election for Bilbray, even though he wasn’t even in their district and they are represented by Duncan Hunter, because they heard how horrible Busby was on the right-wing talk shows. I mean, they didn’t even know who their congressman was. Almost all the spoiled ballots were Republican.

The Democrats would come in casually dressed or in a work uniform perhaps, chat with us in a relaxed way, smile, were pleasant to deal with, rarely asked any questions since they knew what they were doing and made no mistakes with their ballots, and were patient when there were lots of people in line and they had to wait for a few minutes.

So even in this little sample, there was a contrast, and it seemed to fit with my general impressions about the parties and who they represent. Republicans look for order and control and are all about the money. The Democrats want things to run well and expect individuals to be competent, so they don’t need a lot of imposed rules. There is an understanding there that we are all human beings with feelings, doing a task we need to do but being pleasant about it. But they are also understanding when things may not run as smoothly as we would like.

Those are two very different views of life, I think. And I think all in all, I know how I prefer to live mine.