Notes of a Poll Observer
Before Election Day:
Kathleen and I have volunteered to be poll observers for the New Hampshire Democratic party. We’ll be spending election day in the town of North Hampton, population roughly 4,500, on the New Hampshire seacoast. We’re not sure what to expect.
The Boston Globe has been reporting that the New Hampshire race for the U.S. Senate is too close to call. Democrats were initially pleased that the Republican nomination went to a candidate considered far too extreme to win a general election. That might have been true in the past. But now it seems that extremism has become a strength, not a handicap.
We’re thinking that a close race is more likely to feature confrontation or outright conflict at our polling location, the North Hampton School gym. So we are determined, also anxious.
Both determination and anxiety are heightened by our homework assignment: the 2022 General Election Poll Observer Manual’s 56 pages of rules, instructions, and forms. Areas of study include Same Day Registration, Absentee Ballot Processing, Required Voter I.D.s and Affidavits, Challenges to Voters, Malfunctioning Ballot Counters, Avoiding Interaction with the Press, Voter Intimidation, and a category entitled “Big Scene at or Outside the Polling Place.” The Manual also wants us to keep in mind that New Hampshire is an open carry state. Wearing a gun is not considered voter intimidation unless it is drawn. Great.
Election Day:
Armed, but only with sandwiches, fruit, chocolate, water (we’re going to be at the polls for eight hours), phones, an iPad, notebook, pens, and the Manual, we hit the road. News radio is at fever pitch, as if we needed the added adrenaline. Kathleen pulls up a much better alternative — Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue (pun intended). At least when we arrive we’re not any crazier than when we got underway.
We’ve been told to park away from the building so that folks coming to vote can find spaces easily. Despite our out-of-state plates a small group of sign carriers wave and shout enthusiastically as we pull off the road. Walking back to the building, we pass them jammed together on a small patch of lawn, laughing and calling to everyone who goes by. You have to look carefully to see that they are from different parties and back competing candidates.
Inside the gym we present our Official Challenger Designation Letters to the Town Moderator. These confirm that the New Hampshire Democratic Party has authorized us to be poll observers. We climb into a set of low bleachers along one wall. Across from us are sign-in tables arranged alphabetically for registered voters and manned by volunteers. For those who are not registered, a table is located to one side where election supervisors process same-day registration. Separate areas contain roped-off polling booths and ballot counting machines. Further away, behind the polling area, is still another table where absentee ballots are opened and vetted.
Our designation as “challengers” is a result of legislative drafting. Actually, we’re the opposite — primed to ensure that any challenge to a voter by republicans (the real challengers) is legitimate. In left-leaning precincts the GOP mission is to disqualify or discourage voters, while ours is to maximize qualified turnout. So we track same-day registrants to make sure they are allowed to proceed to the sign-in tables, watch voters at the sign-in tables to be sure they get to the voting booths, and keep track of ballots moving from the booths to the counting machines. Meanwhile, we also confirm that the absentee ballots at the back of the room are brought to the sign-in tables, checked against the voter lists, and then also taken to the counting machines. Imagine a football play diagramed with circles and arrows, backfield in motion, several hand-offs.
After several hours we realize that we are watching more than a government process. Some highlights:
A voter steps up to the sign-in table and leans over. “Well, don’t I get a hug?” A volunteer looks up from her list and bolts to her feet. “Oh my God! How long has it been?” They hug, laugh, ask about each other’s children. Those waiting in line smile broadly. Somebody in the back calls out “Does everyone get a hug?” Nobody asks them to hurry up.
A teenage boy comes in with his parents. They go to the registration table. He produces his birth certificate (showing he just turned 18, and that he is a citizen), photo i.d. (he is who he claims to be), and executes an affidavit of domicile (to confirm he is in the correct polling location). When the family arrives at the sign-in table, a poll worker who was checking absentee ballots on the other side of the gym comes hurrying between the booths, leans over the table and high-fives the boy. General applause.
We begin to wonder whether we passed through an invisible membrane on our drive north and have landed on a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover illustration.
Importantly to us, the same-day registration process works seamlessly. At some points the new voter table is registering four people side-by-side. In the entire time we are there we observe only two would-be registrants turned away; both were at the wrong polling station.
The low-key mingling continues, sometimes with people stepping out of various lines to have a conversation before they pick up their ballots. A young mother arrives carrying an infant with two toddlers at her heels. When she gets to the voting booth a poll worker holds the baby so she can fill out her ballot.
I hear raised voices. Yes, there’s an actual disagreement. Two people in line are each insisting that the other had been there first and should go ahead.
We start trying to guess how people will vote based on appearance. This turns out to be difficult, especially because “electioneering,” prohibited at a polling station, includes not just signs and posters but also forbids buttons and clothing with political messages.
In two cases we can be confident of a voter’s choice. One wears bright red, white, and blue Birkenstocks which initially distract from his socks. These however show Donald Trump with a raised middle finger over the text “Let’s Go Brandon.” The second features a vest with the message “#FJB” on the back. “JB” are the President’s initials. You can fill in the “F”. We spot the slogan when the wearer enters the gym and alert the election officials, who promptly engage him in conversation. After research and consultation with the moderator, everyone concludes that the messages are not prohibited electioneering because neither the president nor Donald Trump are on the ballot. Our takeaway is that the poll workers and officials are determined to follow the rules, and equally determined to be fair.
One other observation, this one based on location: almost everyone we see, voters and election officials alike, is white. The exceptions were two black women, one with a toddler and one assisting an elderly white man, and an Asian couple who arrived just before closing time.
After closing we get the “count” from the Moderator. 2,412 votes, not including roughly 400 absentee ballots, all of which have been accepted. The total of more than 2,800 represents a whopping 76% of the 3,700 registered voters in North Hampton.
After Election Day:
The anxiety we had about getting involved in the polling process has become hard to separate in our minds from liberal pre-election fears about the likely results. Both concerns were apparently overblown. Some of our hindsight is simply the relief of dodging possible outbursts of hostility (or worse); there is also the feeling that we have been underestimating our fellow citizens due to the overbearing behavior of a loud and belligerent faction.
But still, Republican election deniers, some 300 in all, were chosen in 48 states across the country as standard bearers by the party faithful. Election officials like those we met in North Hampton who take pride in their work have been impugned and threatened. Some have quit. Others are determined to persevere, but are regularly reminded that their work and they themselves are endangered. In a number of cases their families have been threatened. Likewise endangered is the simple satisfaction in communal voting that we observed in our sampling of nearly 3,000 voters.
Yes, we had a positive experience. And this particular mid-term election beat the odds. But all across the country every unexpected result that favored the democratic process was attained by a razor-thin margin — up to and including the Georgia run-off. On election day, New Hampshire Democratic Party staffers sent 400 observers to more than 200 polling locations. They understand, as should we, this chapter in our history isn’t over.
It’s more than enough to remind us emphatically what we stand to lose.
Andrew Grainger is a retired Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court. He has been designated a Fulbright Senior Specialist by the U.S. Department of State. He and his wife, Kathleen Stone, have taught courses and seminars on U.S. law in numerous countries in Europe and the Far East. His writing has appeared in WBUR’s Cognoscenti and the Boston Globe.