Have you ever wondered what goes on before you stop in to cast your ballot? As early voting began across New York State this weekend, WAMC's North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley visited Clinton County’s only early voting site and she takes us behind the scenes.
There's no line yet at the Clinton County Government Center when I arrive just before 8 Saturday morning.
“You’re more than welcome to come on back here. We’re just waiting for poll inspectors and once everybody gets here at 8:20 – 8:30 and you’ll be able to see how the whole process goes.”
Republic Election Commissioner David Souliere is shuttling between the office and adjacent meeting room as he awaits the poll workers. The room is already set up with voting cubicles and electronics. Souliere explains that happens about a week before voting starts.
“We try to have everything set up just so that way we can test to make sure if there’s any tweaks or changes that we need to make before day one, that we have plenty of time to do that. Over the years we’ve moved stations around. For instance we’ve moved voter tabulator systems closer to an exit just to let the flow of the room go a little easier.”
Souliere adds that the set up for early voting is rather easy.
“These tables and chairs are already here because this is already a meeting room. The two early voting tabulators, those are stored in our election office right next door. So those are pretty easy to wheel in here as well as all the other equipment, it’s all stored in our office. So once it’s programmed and ready for the election it’s just a matter of moving it out to this room and setting it up.”
As county Board of Elections officials wait for poll workers to arrive and anticipation to begin voting heightens, election specialist Tamber Bousquet fondly recalls working polls on Election Day.
“When I was a poll worker and I worked at the South Plattsburgh Fire Station, it was a year we got so much food. You work with the same people a lot of times. So, even if you don’t talk to somebody the whole year, at election time you meet up with the people that you haven’t seen and it‘s kind of like a long lost friend.”
Meanwhile, poll workers are signing in and getting their lanyards.
“So if you can sign in and take your badge.”
“Well what color should I use? You know what color I’m going to use!”
Once the workers have arrived, Souliere takes them into the polling area and provides instructions.
“Welcome to day one of early voting. Obviously you know midterm elections. We plan on being very, very busy. We’ve had over 1,800 people already vote by absentee or early vote by mail. We expect thousands to vote early. I, with my previous experience, would estimate somewhere between four-and-five thousand voters will come through and vote early over the next nine days with today probably being the largest volume."
Souliere and Bousquet then verify the seals on the voting machines as Democratic Commissioner Mary Dyer explains.
“Every election the seals will change, the seal numbers. They are reset before every election. Once you take these off you can’t put them back on.”
Souliere: “Machine 39 is ready to take ballots.”
Debbie Depo has worked many elections and is a coordinator during early voting.
“As coordinator you try to make sure that everybody is comfortable with whatever position they’re doing at the time. You rotate them around.”
Bradley: “So as you look out the door and see the line forming, what do you think?”
Depo: “I think this is great. I believe in our process.”
Bradley: “So what do you like most about doing this?”
Depo: “The people. Seeing people I know, seeing people I meet.”
Poll workers move to their stations and wait for the clock to hit 9 a.m. A iron rod serves as a security lock. Dyer explains that it assures the door cannot be opened until elections officials remove it.
“They’re heavy and they’re bulky. That’s how we bar all the doors.”
Bradley: “There’s no lock on it?”
Dyer: “There is. But we don’t want anybody in here other than our personnel.”
Officials remove the bar and the clock strikes 9.
Nat bar removed to: :06 “9:00, polls are open. The polls are open!”
Kay Washbourne has been a poll worker for 3 years and will work the poll pads signing in voters.
“They just come in. We ask for their first three letters of their first name, first three letters of their last name, find them in the system and flip the pad over and let them sign. It’s a fairly simple process.”
Bradley: “Now when you see a crowd of people lined up out there...”
Washbourne: “I get very thrilled because I think voting is the most important thing we can do. It’s the way we share our voice about what’s happening in our country.”
Voters check in three at a time. Once their name and address is confirmed and the voter signs in and receives a receipt, the voter then moves to a table where their ballot is being printed by Republican Deputy Commissioner Scott Dubrey.
“Basically what happens is when they hand the receipt we check the ballot bipartisanly in the corner. So every ballot has an ID tag with the town and the district they live in. So they check it bipartisanly to make sure that the voter’s getting the correct ballot as it’s coming off the printer. Plus I’m here as deputy making sure that they are getting the correct ballot. So it’s a three way check system here.”
Voters move with assembly-line efficiency. After receiving and marking their ballot, they then bring it to the tabulators that several poll workers are monitoring. Leonard King has been working the polls since voting machines were mechanical.
“I did it before they had the automatic machines here when you had to pull levers and all of that, so.”
Bradley: “You’ve seen a lot of changes over the years then.”
King: “It has changed many times, yeah. The machines were slower, but it was always efficient.”
In addition to absentee ballots, nearly 1,100 ballots were cast on Saturday and about 800 on Sunday.
There are 50,953 total active voters in Clinton County
