OUT & ABOUT: Sleepy Challenges Of A Poll Worker

BY DENISE CLAY/ On most Election Days, I’m truly out and about.

From visiting polling places all over the city to find out about voter turnout and candidate movements, to sitting in a room filled with people holding beer bottles and watching election returns to seeing disputes about who got who’s “street money” and how effective that money was in terms of getting out the vote, I’m literally running so fast that I bump into myself occasionally.

But during Tuesday’s Pennsylvania Primary, I opted to take it slow. In fact, I was so slow, I ground to a halt.

I spent the entirety of Tuesday’s primary in the 9^th Ward, 12^th Division in Northwest Philadelphia. To put an even-finer point on it, I sat in front of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at 7301 Germantown Avenue from about 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

My job: put campaign literature in the hands of voters in the ward. Since it was an off-year election, I didn’t think it would be too hard. I mean, you’re just giving folks the materials they need to help them make an informed decision, right?

And it wasn’t hard, per se. Nothing can really be considered hard work if you’re doing it in the bucolic setting that is the Lutheran Theological Seminary; historic buildings, lots of trees and flowers and shade that made Tuesday’s 80+ degree temps feel a lot lower.

But it was long because, let’s face it, I had to explain to some friends of mine that there was an election on Tuesday in the first place. Even in a place like the 9^th Ward where turnout is among the best in the city, turnout was low. About 130 people came to Lutheran Theological Seminary to vote. That was among the highest voter turnouts in the city, according to officials.

I was joined by two Democratic Committeewomen (Marilyn and Carolin) and one Republican Committeewoman (Susan, who as it turned out used to work for the late Sen. Arlen Specter). To say these women knew their district would be the understatement of the year.

They knew who came out consistently, and what time they usually showed up.

They knew who the political celebrities were, folks like David Cohen, CEO of Comcast (and resident of Marilyn’s doghouse for holding a fundraiser for Gov. Tom Corbett), former mayoral candidate Sam Katz.

They were also able to talk about Phillies baseball with me, something that they paid just that much more attention to now that Jesse Biddle of Germantown Friends was now a member of one of the Phillies minor-league teams.

(He was one of the team’s most recent first-round draft picks … just so you know….)

And they were really cool with most of the voters because Marilyn and Susan had never missed an election.

Here’s a few things I learned as I was sitting there watching democracy in action.

One: Committee people must have a really thick skin. One voter came to the polls yesterday armed with a grievance about reapportionment that he felt compelled to share. Because he blamed the Republicans for this, he aimed most of his vitriol at Susan, which I thought wasn’t exactly fair. She handled it. But then again, she’s had to take Donald Trump to the airport. She’s used to high-pressure situations (and gasbags) obviously.

Two: Despite all efforts to the contrary, there are informed voters out there and many of them are in the 9^th Ward, 12^th Division. The ballot they handed out for judicial races was a ballot comprised of people who submitted themselves for interviews with ward leaders. They did their homework about the issues.

When you have among your voters a retired federal prosecutor, you kind of have to.

Which made my job a little harder. Why? You see, the sample ballot I was handing out was for Omar Sabir, a candidate for Traffic Court.

The 9^th Ward didn’t endorse anyone for Traffic Court because it knows there’s a real possibility that Traffic Court probably won’t be on the ballot come November. There’s a bill making its way through the state legislature that would take the candidates off the ballot as part of a plan to get rid of Traffic Court altogether.

Thus, my recycling bin has a lot of these ballots in it. But at least I recycle. That’s something.

As someone who usually spends time all over the place on Election Day, my Tuesday was a nice change of pace. Will I do it again? Probably not, because I like being on my side of the fence a little better.

But as a way to spend a nice day outside, few things beat being a part of democracy.

Now if only we could have convinced Pennsylvania’s registered voters of that…

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