Elections Job!

So I have been working for the Maricopa County Elections Dept. in Phoenix since January and recently the job got put on hold until they need us to help prepare for the next big election (in November), but I thought I'd write and post a bunch of pics from the job because it has been super fun. When I first moved here, I emailed Sue, in charge of the elections that happen, because I was interested in delivering the equipment, what I did for many years for Linda Smith in California. She told me to contact her in January and it was perfect timing because my battery recycling job had just ended and about a week later this election job started. However, since Maricopa is the 3rd largest county in the US it took about 3 weeks to get the routes set up for the February election. Yolo County back in CA it took 3 days total just about to load the routes from the warehouse to the trucks and deliver and pick up again. Here its tons bigger so there was a lot more to do than I had thought but it was good because I ended up really liking the people I worked with. We spent about a week total delivering the routes to different areas in and around Phoenix. A few days it rained but other than that it was pretty clear. There were about 20 people (partners and drivers) and 10 Penske trucks that we got to ride in. Being able to ride-along with the driver was great because if our stops were far away (which some of mine were) then I was able to take a nap on the way there and back. The work wasn't hard, just take the equipment into the polling place, set it up, and take off. We did this for about 8 days to places all over and around Phoenix.

Me w/my own badge! Ronnie - my driver & ME!

Election Day! Sarah & I made Penske truck cookies & brought them in to work in the afternoon. They were a big hit.

At 5'ish we all got Penske Vans to drive and I went to Peoria City Hall & waited for the poll workers to bring the ballots. It was really cold so I stayed in the van and ate my snacks and played games on my palm pilot & listened to music on my Zune. Around 11pm the final ballots were checked in and dropped off to me and I got to drive back to the warehouse. It was a bit crazy because the dome light in my van wouldn't turn off and then I got lost on some streets close to the warehouse & started going the wrong way down a 1-way street! Luckily there were no cars coming my way before I figured it out. Something surprising I saw when I arrived at the warehouse was that inmates were unloading the vans! They are the ones who are out on good behavior and will be leaving jail very soon. If they tried to escape, they would be thrown back in for an even longer period of time. So I felt a little bit better knowing that. Very carefully I backed it up to the dock and it was unloaded. We munched on cookies & watched them work until about 1am. I spent the night at Sarah's house that night because we had to wake up at 7am to be in to work again by 7:30. Yawn. It was a short night but very fun!