Democracy at Work: Poll workers ensure every vote counts

Published 9:30 am Monday, November 2, 2020

VALDOSTA – For Rockney Carter being a Lowndes County poll worker means getting up early and grabbing something nutritious before leaving the house.

Shifts started as early as 5 a.m. – 6 a.m. at the latest – so when Carter is working a four- to 15-hour shift and voters come from 7 a.m.-7 p.m., he said grabbing breakfast is a must for the day.

“You’ve got to come in and be able to just move with the flow of the people and make sure that we accommodate them, get them in and get them out in a timely manner,” Carter said. “Our objective is as fast as possible.”

And hopefully that was 15 minutes or less during the three weeks of early voting that ended last week. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3.

When dealing with averages of 1,500, 1,357, and as of Oct. 30, 1,615 voters daily in each respective week of early voting, that’s how fast it needed to be.

Does it always get there? No. Do they do everything they can to get people out on time? Yes.

People have questions, Carter said, and the poll worker was faced with different numbers of people throughout any given day. Take, for instance, college students.

“Their flow is going to be different simply because they want to vote; however, they’re not registered in Lowndes County,” he said. “They may be registered in the Atlanta area, for instance, therefore we have to bring them in and look them up.”

They can vote, but it’s usually with a provisional ballot – a paper ballot. Sometimes they aren’t comfortable with that but Carter said that’s why it is important to document everything the voter turns in.

On the other hand, poll workers encounter people who haven’t voted in years. There, it’s about accommodation and making sure they’re able to vote electronically or provisionally.

Misinformation leads to answering a lot of questions, Carter said, adding part of a poll worker’s job is combating misinformation.

“Lack of knowledge of the entire process becomes an issue because they listen to a lot of things from the news and urban legends regarding their votes not counting or they can’t do this, they can’t do that,” he said.

There is even third party information out there saying if they haven’t voted, they have a limited amount of time to do so.

“We have to let them know that we do not send that out to them and we look them up to make sure either one, they have voted; two, they received the ballot they should have,” Carter said.

Three is bringing them in to vote.

Brooks County voting 

Charles Dave, Brooks County elections supervisor, said he has to deal with the same things.

Whereas counties are dealing with an increased voter intake, Dave said Brooks is seeing the same numbers it usually does – just about all of them.

These are people who regularly vote, but they still have questions and they still deal with misinformation – a lot of it, he said.

“My county is 65% elderly people, so I have to win their confidence when I talk to them,” Dave said.

Dave said he sees voters misled by politicians who misunderstand the voting process and then relay that misunderstanding to voters.

It’s a lack of election education. That’s the easiest way to call it, he said, as they spread rumors and propaganda through it.

He regaled the time when President Donald Trump said there were “phony ballots” without his name printed on them and they were being thrown in the trash or only Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s name was on them.

“That’s propaganda and I knew that when it came out of his mouth,” Dave said. “There’s no way we’re going to put a ballot in November without Biden, (Jo) Jorgensen – all the candidates – on there.”

Dave has often heard voters say “I don’t want you to lose my ballot.” He’ll respond and say “Ma’am or sir, I’ve never lost a ballot in the 12 years I’ve been doing this. I don’t plan on losing yours.”

He said they’ll say “OK, I’m going to trust you this time.”

“OK. The last other 12 times you trusted me, I’m glad you trust me today,” he said.

More than a job

Misinformation has been a buffer in the voting process as the average voter doesn’t understand it. Carter said he understands.

Before becoming a poll worker, he said he didn’t understand the process.

“Prior to working here, I thought I cast my vote, it’s counted, that’s it,” he said. “After working here, I found out there’s a whole lot of checks and balances that are done to make sure that there’s no voter fraud (and) that my vote is counted.”

He called the checks and balances an “involved process.”

When voting, Carter explained, one database is checking the voter’s name, another is checking the voter’s polling place and together the databases cross-reference the results.

“I can’t give you the full details because I don’t know it, but I hear the conversations regarding (votes) are ‘You need to check this,’ ‘Did you check this report,’” he said. “So, I know that there are reports that exist to verify that people cannot vote twice and that voter fraud is reduced.”

There’s a certain joy behind being a poll worker, helping educate citizens and seeing a higher voter turnout, Carter said.

“It keeps me employed,” he joked at first. “It gives me a job and other people a job as well.”

And that’s a good thing. 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics site, Georgia hasn’t calculated its October stats, but the September unemployment rate was at 6.4%, the second lowest of the year since the pandemic began and 1.8% lower than the average.

The unemployment rate for the local metro area – Lowndes, Brooks, Lanier and Echols counties – was at 5.5% in September and the month ended with Valdosta having 56,700 jobs.

The expectation is to see the unemployment rate lower after this month given the job availability, especially with the polls.

Lowndes County Elections Supervisor Deb Cox said she doubled the amount of poll workers she normally hires during early voting and she plans to double that on Election Day, Nov. 3.

She was expecting 40,000 voters to have voted early by its end on Oct. 30, so that leaves more than 40,000 voters to cast ballots Nov. 3.

“Statewide, we’re planning for a 100% turnout,” she said. “We’re hoping for 50% in advance and 50% in the polling place, which is generally a 50/50 split no matter what the number is.”

She sees hiring a sufficient number of poll workers as one of her responsibilities.

“The people that are in here working are not working because they don’t have a job, they’re working because of a sense of volunteerism,” Cox said. “A lot of them are working full-time jobs and coming in here to work four-hour shifts.”

Civic responsibilities

It’s not a matter of a job, rather one of public service. Yet, an increased voter turnout does not only result in jobs being available, it reveals the greatness of the country, Carter said.

People are exercising their right to vote and it’s an exciting thing.

“I’m happy to see a lot of people are energized to exercise that right,” he said. “The volume of voters has been increased almost threefold from prior elections.”

So to say that, Brooks didn’t really see an increase in voter turnout and Lowndes increased almost threefold, it’s mind boggling to know what the larger counties are going through, Carter said.

Take DeKalb County for instance.

It carries about 530,000 registered voters, and as of late last week, 308,283 voters voted early – 112,741 mail-in votes and 195,542 in-person votes, surpassing the 2016 numbers.

Taking out the mail-in votes, DeKalb saw an average between 349 to 1,502 voters a day at each of its 12 polling places, the medium being 858 voters.

It was a high volume count, and though he said he couldn’t speak for DeKalb’s poll workers, Erik Burton, communications consultant for DeKalb elections, said he’s heard positive feedback.

Their trials aren’t as mind-boggling as one might think, he said.

“At some voting locations, people are in and out,” Burton said. “The interactions aren’t extensive or long; it’s really just about going through the process, checking people in, verifying information and sometimes you have to educate voters on different things, too.”

Much like Carter’s reaction to the surplus of voters, it’s an exciting thing to see so many let their voices be heard, Erica Hamilton, DeKalb voter registration and elections director, said.

This year is historic and voters are energized, she said.

“We are experiencing record numbers in absentee and early voting which speaks to the overall energy around this election season,” Hamilton said. “As we approach Election Day, we want to remind all voters to bring that same excitement to the polls.”

That’s a sentiment shared by Cox as the Lowndes County election office heads into Election Day. She said she and her staff are preparing for what could likely be a 72-hour Election Day.

“The day before, we’re delivering, setting up, maintaining security,” she said. “The night before, we’re still setting up, maintaining security. The day of (and) night of we’re waiting for all our supplies to come back, election results, publishing – doing whatever we need to do right into the next day.”

Cox said she expects results to be in by midnight, but it’s still daunting to look at the amount of work that goes into Election Day. Poll workers may be bracing for it, but they’re ready, she said.

“These people are stepping up to the plate, they’re interested (and) they want to make sure our democracy works,” Cox said.