Monday, November 10, 2008

The Day of a Troubleshooter

I did vote Yes on 102 to protect marriage here in Arizona. If I still lived in CA or was registered to vote there, I would have votes Yes on Prop 8 which is basically the same thing. I'm happy to say that all the hard work people did there to get it to pass , paid off ! WooHOO

In September I was a troubleshooter for the first time in the general election. It was a good learning experience and so when the presidential election came, I felt a little better prepared. I had to attend to training classes again and got 7 packets to deliver to 7 inspectors on Saturday - Sunday. I got most of them done Saturday but did have to do 3 on Sunday. Luckily I pretty much worked with all the same inspectors as before so I didnt need to spend so long at their homes going over the packet information with them.

Monday I worked 1/2 day at my job in Chandler, then had the afternoon to attend the set up meetings and make sure people were doing things correctly. I had 2 places in Gilbert & 5 in Mesa. The last set up time was 7pm!! I took a break around 6 to go to Rusty's & he put a new belt on my car and we watched last week's episode of The Office. It was a nice break. Went out to the last polling place, a church in Gilbert and finally got done there around 8.
Tuesday morning started bright & early at 5am. I started driving to my precincts and the lines were getting crazy long. Throughout the day it died down a bit and there was a steady stream of people.
Around 11 I got to meet up with Sarah & Chris Reeves - my good friends from CA - living here but now living in Wyoming!! Chris is a linesman so they move around a lot. They needed to get some temple clothes so I went with them to do that & then we went to lunch at Jack-In-The-Box. It was awesome to see them again bc since they moved from Globe (a couple hrs from me) to Safford (3 hrs away) I havent gotten to see them as much. Now, living in Wyoming , I dont know WHEN I'll see them again so it was really nice of them to let me know they were in town & I feel so blessed that I wasnt working in Chandler that day & I had a somewhat flexible schedule.

The fun ended all too soon & then it was back to work, kept rotating to my precincts, when people had trouble, which happened often, voters would show up with the wrong ID or refuse to vote provisional, stuff like that is what I took care of and I laid down the law :) thank goodness for the walkie-talkie radio that I could call & ask for help from the base in Phoenix in case I wasnt sure of something. The biggest problem I saw was that other polling places sent voters from place to place bc they were showing up at the right place to vote. By the time voters got to one of my places, they were pretty mad about driving around and waiting in lines so much. The easy answer is that every boardworker has access to the 480 # and they have a board of people in Phoenix who, when you call , they can tell you where you are registered to vote. So easy. So I was sad to see people getting so upset and mad. Also, the news started saying it was okay to bring passports as as valid form of I.D. NOT TRUE. So I had to get that fixed. Voters were not happy about that change but the news never should have started posting that on the t.v. GRR

My friend Brennen texted and asked me if I was hungry and I sort of was, so he made some super good spaghetti which I went and ate around 6, then back to work again because the polls closed at 7. Thank goodness none of my precincts had lines! Everyone got shut down and out at the latest - 8:30. I went to the drop off site in Mesa & checked in and everyone had dropped off their memory packs so I was good to go around 9:30. At 10pm I got to log off the radio - phew - that thing gets annoying after a few days. I can only handle it so long.

I'm grateful my boss in Chandler let me take 2 days off work to be a troubleshooter. I'm grateful the elections department asked me to work for them again. I'm grateful the people I worked with were mostly okay & not too much of a pain. Yay for being a troubleshooter!!

2 comments:

Ashley Gilbert said...

Way to help out in polotics Stace! I too voted yes on Prop 8 and I am happy it paid off, though I had my doubts in the beginning. Hopefully it will stay this way for at least 10 more years and no one will try and overturn the voters. If I lived in AZ I would have voted Yes on 2 too. Way to go! Propositions rock! Love Ash

Michael B said...

Way to go Stacie!