I was at the Town Hall from 6:15 a.m. until 9:30 p.m. The election went well though fell short of the turnout I thought we would get. That might be because most races were uncontested, the candidates for the presidency are pretty well decided, and the referenda hadn't fired up the constituency. Also might be because mid-morning it began to snow big wet flakes continuing until we left tonight. Not a good day to be out driving. The tabulator plugged up once. That has never happened before. I got on the phone to Control Central (they maintain these machines). They said to open the bottom bin and pull the stuck ballot out from that direction. I broke the seal on the bin, unlocked it, got down on the floor on my back and grabbed the offending ballot. I'd handed the phone off to Chief Inspector Barb while Command Central walked her through how to reset the machine. It only took maybe ten minutes to accomplish all of that but we had a gaggle of enrapt voters watching us when we got the machine working again. Three men offered to help me up off the floor but I declined their offers. I explained I wanted to see that their ballots went through smoothly, I had to relock and reseal the bin, and (mostly) because getting up was going to be an inelegant process from this position. Afterward Barb and the other poll worker joked I was the only one of them that could have flopped down on the floor like that and get up again at all. Between that incident, reissuing six ballots, and remaking one I stayed busy w/ paperwork while handling the more minor issue of the tabulator spitting back out ballots because of 'ambiguous marks' (those voters didn't fill in the circle as instructed but instead put a checkmark next to name). I'm not completely done yet. I offered to help the clerk by taking the school's paperwork in tomorrow. Tonight, though, I sleep.
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