Voting

My neighbor Anita and I were poll workers.  Barb was the Chief Inspector.  The three of us put in fifteen hours at the polls today.  One hour early to set up, thirteen hours while the polls were open, and one hour to tally the votes and close down.  We figured this might be a low turnout election - a primary for state judges and a primary for a vacant congressional seat.  We make bets before the polls opened on how many voters we think will turn out.  Voter turnout had  surpassed all of the guesses by noon.  The county had given us fifteen paper ballots because they recognize that there are some people who don't trust the voting machine, are afraid to use it, or just plain refuse to use it.  We were running low on those paper ballots by 10 a.m. and called the county to ask for more.  The county clerk dropped off another 10 ballots.  In the afternoon we were getting low again on paper ballots so we got the OK to print off more copies on-site.  All in all we had 121 voters today which is about 1/3 of the people registered to vote in our town.  It was nice to see people from the neighborhood and great to have such a large turnout to vote.  However, next election think I'll wear my hiking boots - not stylish but better for hard surfaces.