Have Doubts about Election Integrity? Sign up to be a Poll Worker
Working on recent elections in Transylvania County gave me an inside look at the voting process -- and a lot of confidence in its security and accuracy.
CEDAR MOUNTAIN — One of my former neighbors, Jim Cruickshank, is a proud Republican.
Given the nation’s polarized political climate and the job we shared — Transylvania County poll worker during the contentious 2018 midterm elections — it might be expected that he and I, a registered Democrat, wouldn’t get along.
But we did. Very well. Not only that, I ended up owing him a big thanks.
A few months before those midterms, I’d been convinced to take on a job for which I had zero qualifications — chief judge of the Cedar Mountain voting precinct.
Yes, I received training from the Transylvania County Board of Elections and certainly this title — invoking images of robes and gavels — is highly inflated. But I was responsible for providing an accurate vote count for the precinct, for coaxing it from balky, outdated voting machines and for reconciling it with the kind of fussy paperwork that I’ve tried to avoid all my life.
(Me, to wife Laura: Where’s that thingy I need for my taxes?”
Laura: You mean your W-2 form?
Me: Yeah, that.)
Cruickshank was a far more experienced poll worker, having served as chief judge for several previous (and subsequent) elections. Also, as a retired accountant, he handled paperwork the way vintage Tiger Woods handled a graphite-shafted driver.
Though he had moved out of the precinct shortly before the election, and could therefore no longer serve as its chief judge, he was allowed to work as one of the two judges at Cedar Mountain. He agreed to do so to help me out.
He offered guidance during the day and basically took over during crunch time, after the polls closed and the results needed to be tabulated, reconciled and delivered to the elections office in Brevard. That our precinct was able to do this quickly and accurately was mostly due to Cruickshank’s expertise.
I bring this up now because we are entering another election season — and even more so because the unproven claims of massive voter fraud during 2020 and the stories of apparent voting misconduct by our former U.S. Representative, Mark Meadows and his wife, Debra, have left a lot of doubts about the integrity of our voting system.
I don’t have any. I’ve seen it in action.
Though I can’t work the elections this year, because I’m covering them, you can and, maybe, should.
First, County Elections Director Jeff Storey still needs workers (not volunteers, mind you; they do get paid) for the May 17 primary. Secondly, it’s a great chance to mingle with neighbors in a scrupulously nonpartisan environment.
This makes for solid elections.
“That’s by design and we preach that to the workers,” Storey said. “They have to be neutral and if they can’t be, the job might not be for them.”
And, at least to a small degree, it promotes solid communities — allowing workers to appreciate people for who they are rather than who they vote for.
Deborah Perkins, a Cedar Mountain resident and its unofficial historian, told the most informative and entertaining stories. She happened to be a Democrat.
Generosity with a large tub of outstanding, locally made pimento cheese spread can spread a lot of good will. We learned that from Lisa Tisdale, Cruickshank’s 2020 replacement as Republican judge in Cedar Mountain.
And everybody appreciates super-competent workers such as Cruickshank and Tisdale, whom I started referring to as the “brains behind the operation.”
Finally, you learn that elections, if not quite fail-safe, are about as secure as a transparent, public process can be, especially now that the voting machines in Transylvania have been upgraded.
Granted, my view is limited to two election cycles in a remote precinct in a remote county. But one reason the job was so intimidating and required repeated consultations with Cruickshank and Tisdale, was the exacting nature of the process.
The board assigns workers to ensure a mix of political affiliation and levels of experience at each precinct. One team confirms the names and addresses of voters and issues Authorization to Vote forms (ATVs). Ballots are handed out at a separate station, minimizing the chance that one rogue worker could manipulate results. The numbers of both forms and ballots are carefully recorded and, at the end of the day, reconciled.
Once an ATV is issued, the computer system automatically prevents another from being issued under the same name. And to prevent this system from being hacked, the computers in each precinct are electronically walled off from outside networks.
There are many more such safeguards in place, but it was more than these that left me feeling confident about the results. It was the attitude among all the temporary and full-time elections workers I encountered, the feeling that we were performing in a secular setting something close to a sacred duty — protecting democracy.
If your politics are different from mine, and you’re skeptical of any opinion about election integrity coming from a Democrat, take it from a proud Republican:
“I feel strongly that the process has numerous checks and balances,” Cruickshank wrote me after I emailed him to check my recollections, “along with security redundancy that ensures that the vote counts are accurate as cast.”
Love the story Dan. Every American should read it!
Spot on. It's a long day for Chief Judges, but oh so worthwhile and fun.