Internship
For my internship, I worked as a poll worker (judge) for the California gubernatorial recall election in September of 2021. I worked from September 11th to September 14th, for a total of 42.5 hours.
Timesheet
Daily Journal Entries
DAY 1: 9/11/21
I arrived at 7:30 AM for my first day working at the polls. At first, I was pretty nervous. I had no idea what to expect, for a few different reasons. First, I am not even legally able to vote myself, so I know very little about the process. Second, I completed the training both online and in-person, but it didn't give me a very clear idea of what an actual day on the job would be like. All I learned to do was set up a printer and a touchscreen.
In the beginning, we all worked together to set up the touchscreens, touchpads, and computers. It was a quick setup, so we had about half an hour of waiting around until the polls opened at 9:00 AM. There was only one other person that was in high school, the rest were adults (most of whom had done this before) which was a little intimidating. Regardless, I was able to get the hang of it after a few hours.
The day was pretty slow; we only got a bit over 20 in-person voters during the 10-hour period so it got pretty boring. I spent much of the time moving around and trying different jobs to see what I was most comfortable with. Some of these included directing voters to the touchscreens, unlocking touchscreens with the key card, handing out stickers, sanitizing folders and pens and other miscellaneous things, and checking in voters at the poll pad. Nothing was too difficult though, so there wasn't anything I needed to worry about.
At the end of the day, when the polls closed at 5:00 PM, we cleaned up and put the tech away. Then, we waited for the rovers to come to pick up the ballots. It's required that we wait for half an hour after the last voter before we can fully clean up, but we didn't have to because they came before 4:30 PM. The cleanup itself was very quick so we were able to leave early, before 6:00 PM. Overall, it was a pretty good first day!
DAY 2: 9/12/21
Today, I was able to secure myself a semi-permanent position, which was working at the poll pad where voters checked in before receiving their ballots. Nothing was really "permanent," though, because it was all very laid-back (much more so than I was initially expecting; I was actually anticipating the complete opposite kind of environment). I really enjoyed this position; it allowed me to talk to a lot of different people, which I found fun. Some were nicer than others, but that's just the way it goes.
The process is as follows: greet the voter, and ask their name and address to look them up in the system. Check with them to see if the information entered is correct. If not, update their information for them if desired. Then, have them listen to or read an oath and sign. Finally, the voter gets to choose if they would like to vote on the touchscreen or on a paper ballot, and then direct them to whichever station can help them further depending on their decision.
Like Saturday, it was pretty uneventful. Whenever I wasn't talking with voters or other poll workers, I did my homework. I found that I was able to be fairly productive with my school work, but I lost focus sometimes just because I had so much time to do it and nothing else.
DAY 3: 9/13/21
Today was much of the same thing. Arrive at 8:00 AM, set up the tech, wait until 9:00 AM for the polls to open, more waiting. Lots of waiting. I brought my English homework to do because I had a lot to make up while I missed school. The other high schooler had left, so I was the only teenager left there. I carried on with the rest of the day and cleaned up at the end as usual.
DAY 4: 9/14/21
I had anticipated this day to be super busy, but it was actually just as slow as the other days at first. It wasn't until after I came back from my lunch break that things really picked up. It was a constant flow of voters, which really let me apply the skills I had learned throughout the other three days I had been here. It was much more challenging because there were lines of people instead of just the occasional person or two.
It wasn't nearly as boring as the other days, which was a relief because it was a 15-hour workday. Everything went well until one person, in particular, came to vote. He was aggressive from the start when I was checking him in and getting the ballot printed, but once he had finished voting something had happened that made him blow up. He yelled at my coworkers for reasons I wasn't entirely sure of, but security was called in the end and he was removed from the building. Aside from that, though, the day was fine. And, luckily, he was only the second difficult voter we got, and the first wasn't nearly as bad.
Leaving was a little bittersweet, as I had come to enjoy the people I was working with and the job I was doing. I was glad to be done with it, though, and I'm really happy about all the experience I got from it. I learned how to better talk with people, aggressive or not, and I also learned a lot about the voting process which I previously knew nothing about.
Reflection
All in all, I think that this internship was a really great experience and I'm glad that I did it. Not only did I have the opportunity to learn more about voting, get involved in the process, and gain valuable work experience, but I also had fun. There was a lot of sitting around and waiting because the days were long and most of the time there were not a lot of people coming in to vote, but I still really enjoyed getting to talk to so many different people over the span of the four days, even if only briefly while I was getting their ballots ready for them to use. The last day I worked there, on election day, it was a lot more busy than the previous days, so I was happy because it kept me occupied. I got along well with the other poll workers there, and they were all very friendly and helped me out whenever I needed it. I even still talk to one of them today.
To be honest, I think it is unlikely that I will be able to do this again, at least not any time soon, mostly because of bad timing since I'm going to be off in college at the end of this year (hopefully). It may not be a lot of days of work, but it's still a commitment because it takes up the entirety of the days. If I had the chance, I'm not sure if I would choose to be a poll worker again, but regardless, I think that it was a great experience.