Working at the polls

Today (Tuesday, September 16, 2014) I am again working at the polling place for the Town of Delton. The Wisconsin Dells School District, which includes only part of the Town, is having an election for funding a proposed new high school. The whole thing is more than a little controversial, but no need to go into the details.

What it means for me is that I will be at Marshall Hall from 6:30 a.m. until at least 9:00 p.m. tonight. The school proposal is the only thing on the ballot, and since many of the Town residents are not eligible to vote this time, I doubt we will have more than a couple of hundred voters, max. Normally I would say fewer voters would show up than that, but this one has generated some strong feelings.

It will be a long day, and I am taking along my tablet to do some reading. No internet access, though. I would take the laptop and try to get some writing done, but my experience has been that there is just enough disruption to make it hard to concentrate for any length of uninterrupted time.

The next time I do this will be the November 4 election, which will be busier and more hectic. The voting process itself is not a pain, but we have to stay for an hour or two after the polls close at 8:00 p.m. to do tons of paperwork -- this even though the machines count the ballots. At the last presidential election, we were there until almost eleven o'clock -- three hours after we closed the doors to the public.

For the school election today, it should not be so bad because we will not have to prepare as many reports or communicate to as many other government agencies as we do for general elections.