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In 2020 voters nationwide reported attempts at intimidation via the right-wing media. Robocalls broadcast misinformation about voting in some states, including Michigan. A neighbor who’d voted in person mentioned seeing a man in camo sitting in his truck with a weapon in the parking lot outside his polling station. Detroit poll workers dealt with angry “poll watchers” who were asked to watch the vote counting from behind the glass walls of the convention center for Covid safety. Biden won. Trump lost. Frivolous lawsuits alleging fraud in Michigan were dismissed for lack of evidence. Millions witnessed the violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, via television. So much animosity. So much anxiety.

Two years later, I went to City Hall and applied to be a poll worker because I needed to witness the process from the inside. I passed a test, which was mostly proofreading printed and written numbers and words, then went to a training session and was teamed up with Jeffrey, who’d been a poll worker for years. I learned how the process is designed to ensure accuracy, and to use the computerized voting equipment that could not access the Internet but only the registered voter database loaded on it the morning of the election. Then I revealed that I sometimes suffer what I’d called a verbal dyslexia, but what I’ve since learned is a form of aphasia. When I read numbers out loud, they may not match the number that I am looking at. Accommodation: I would do the part of the job that involved silently reading numbers, not speaking them, as I verified voter registrations and gave voters their ballots.

I expected to be nervous, as I would on any first day on a new job. I didn’t sleep well the night before because I had nightmares about poll watchers standing behind me, looking over my shoulder. Creepy. Daylight savings time had just ended, and Election Day fell on a full moon with a lunar eclipse.

I was supposed to be at the high school a mile away from my home at 6 a.m. to start the fourteen-hour day—so was shocked when I opened my eyes to see the red digital 5:36 on my alarm clock. The alarm hadn’t rung, and there was no time to make coffee. I only had time to wash my face, brush my hair and teeth, and get into the clothes I’d laid out the night before: politically neutral olive drab sweater and cargo pants with a pepper spray canister in one pocket, cellphone and ID in another.

Because I knew the bridge between my apartment building and the high school was closed for repairs, I took an alternate route. Somehow in the dark I missed the intended side street. I drove another block over and finally pulled into a parking spot at 5:55. As I locked my purse in the trunk, I marveled at the orange full moon hanging over the city skyline.

Right away the precinct worker in charge of set-up had all of us moving voting booths, tables, and chairs into the gym, and taping signs where needed. The precinct captains rolled in the carriers with ballots and recordkeeping and security devices, driver’s license scanners, and the laptops onto which the voter rolls would be loaded and which we’d use to verify voter registrations and assign ballots. We set up identical voting stations for voters from the two precincts that would be voting there on opposite sides of the gym, with the voting booths spread out in the middle. Since the precinct maps set up in the hall outside the gym could be confusing, we’d have to make sure voters were registered for their correct precinct.

I was a newbie, but most of the workers had done this before so were both efficient and friendly to each other. Jeffrey teased Cynthia. At the primary months before, she hadn’t kept her end of the bargain—to dance each time they tallied a hundred voters. This time Jeffrey promised he’d hold her to it.

When the polls opened at 7, a line already snaked down the hall outside the gym. People on their way to work or coming off a night shift filled out their voter application at the first table and showed their ID to Cynthia or Joel. When they came to our table, Jeffrey and I scanned their driver’s licenses and, if their names appeared on the voter rolls, assigned a numbered ballot in a security sleeve. After they finished filling out their ballots, voters went to another table at the back of the gym, where the ballot number and application slip were checked and the application slip saved before each voter fed the scannable ballot into the tabulator.

Sometimes voters’ names pulled up on the voting rolls as being in the other precinct, so we sent them with their slip and ID to the other workers at the laptops across the gym. If someone had already voted by absentee ballot the computer told us, and the voter could cancel the absentee ballot and vote a new one. For this our precinct captain had to call the clerk’s office across town to request the cancel.

The school security guard and a city policeman in the hall outside the gym entrance lowered my safety anxiety, my aphasia proved to be a non-issue, and poll watchers kept their distance and dealt directly with the precinct captain.

Cynthia, Joel, Jeffrey, and I were in a companionable groove in no time. Cynthia gave off her hallmark welcoming vibe, while Joel oozed his insurance salesman’s charm to greet voters. In a cheery blaze-orange buffalo-plaid shirt, Jeffrey showed why he worked in communications for a Fortune 50 company as he effortlessly used the computer and put voters at ease, even while asking them to go across the gym or across town to get to their correct precinct.

Voters from the two precincts at our polling place live in small homes and multi-family rentals in the neighborhood surrounding one of the city hospitals, so many people came in wearing their scrubs—certified nursing assistants, orderlies, cafeteria workers, nurses, cleaning staff. A police officer in uniform and men wearing fluorescent safety vests, steel-toed boots, and grime came through.

“Here you go. After you’ve filled out your ballot in one of the booths, please take it to the table in the corner for the next step,” I said hundreds of times that day from behind my mask. Though masks weren’t required, my personal circumstances made wearing one a necessary precaution.

Imagine: Old, young, and in-between. Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American. Ponytails, weaves, no hair, bright blue-green hair. Up-dressed, come-as-you-are apparel. None or all kinds of bling. Perfumes and colognes that lingered in the air in front of me.

“You, ma’am, are our one-hundredth voter today,” Jeffrey announced like a gameshow host. The four of us stood up, applauded and cheered, then waved our arms above our heads and did a little shimmy shake, which made voters in line before us gawk in astonishment and got some laughs.

Imagine: People leaning on canes, shuffling along; a woman in a wheelchair pushed by a boyfriend; and a man in a wheelchair pushed by his wife. A tall man leaned on his cane and said, “My wife is taking my ballot to the next table, so I don’t have to walk across the gym. I broke my hip three weeks ago. Is that all right?” A gentleman with his mother asked, “My mother is legally blind. Can I read the ballot to her and help her fill it out?”

In the brief lulls we chatted among ourselves, and Jeffrey circled the gym, getting his steps in since he was working on his “cruise body” for an upcoming Caribbean vacation.

Over the course of the afternoon and evening, dozens of young women and men timidly announced, “This is my first time voting.” So I quickly explained the straight party ticket part of the ballot and the nonpartisan section, and flipped the sample over to mention that there were three proposals.

Some parents with grade-school-age children came in and explained each step of the process as they went along. Some single parents towed a young child. In the late afternoon, a number of voters joined us in exclaiming, “I wish I had that much energy” to the mother of one boy who tried to either do a soccer slide tackle or break dance before he climbed into and sat on a handicap voter cubicle that hadn’t been used all day.

Though surprised, I didn’t say anything special to the scowling man wearing the “Don’t tread on me” stocking cap, and he didn’t say anything to Jeffrey about his wearing a rainbow-striped stocking cap. After school hours, the heat was turned down as usual, so we bundled ourselves and I let down my graying ponytail to cover my neck. The lines of voters were moving so fast that they didn’t have time to get cold.

A pair of sisters that I guessed to be nineteen and eighteen were proud to announce that this was the younger one’s first time. As I handed the younger woman her ballot, I blurted, “Thank you for being a voter! Thank you for believing in democracy!”

After they took their ballots and went off to the booths, Jeffrey turned to me. “You had me tearing up there for a second.”

“Yeah. That was a bit unexpected,” I said. “But I really do believe in democracy. That’s why I wanted to do this, to be here.”

Some mothers and daughters commented on proposal three on reproductive rights as they exited the gym. An elderly couple held hands as they walked out. A woman ran back to her car to get her ID.

About an hour before the polls were to close—by which time we had danced five times and were all tired from the marathon with only a few breaks—a young woman dressed in a silver velour unicorn onesie, complete with white horn and mane, silently presented her ID and got her ballot.

At 8 p.m. our precinct captain ceremoniously announced, “The polls are now closed,” and we set about balancing for the final time the number of voters versus the number of voting slips on poll reports. Perfect match. We removed the scanned paper ballots from the tabulator and put them in the secure container. We witnessed the captain as she backed up the data and printed the paper slips and sealed the containers.

We closed up the voting booths and packed them up to be stored in a locked storage room until clerk’s office employees could pick them up the next day. Except the ballots. Right away, they would be taken to the clerk’s office to be secured.

As I was about to leave, I caught Jeffrey’s eye and wished him a good cruise. He beckoned me over with open arms for a hug. Maybe we’d work together in the next spring’s election.

It was already dark when I walked to my car, but the moon hadn’t risen yet. I swung through a pizza joint on my way home, and as I ate, tried to process all the sights and sounds of the day. The curious part of me wanted to wait up for election results. The exhausted part led me to bed. My heart felt full. Regardless of the election outcomes, I’d done my part.

The Angle of Falling Light

by Beverly Gologorsky

    Set during the 'forever wars' that followed 9/11, The Angle of Falling Light movingly explores the demons that survivors must wrestle with in the wake of tragedy. Beverly Gologorsky brings us a great cast of characters, at their center three working-class women trying to shape lives of their own in a world that seems to promise them nothing but deadening repetition. Brave and faltering, they face daunting conundrums of love, care, and the pull of freedom. How do we live past the terrible knowledge that we cannot always help those we cherish the most? Are we still entitled to seek happiness? Knowing how easily disaster can strike the vulnerable, how do we dare to take the risks required for a satisfying life? Is such a thing even possible in a society hooked on war, dangerous drugs, and hatred of the 'other’? Alongside the unforgettable trio of Nina and her two daughters (the beautiful but heedless Marla and shy, determined Tessa—barely an adult, but forced to pick up the pieces when her home life shatters), we also spend time with Rhonda, an 80-something artist whose struggle to stay independent in the face of physical limitations and family pressure complements Tessa’s quest to become a photographer. Gologorsky’s unsparing vision of the bleakness so rampant in a nation addicted to combat and inequality only renders more compelling her portraits of these women bound and determined to make a way from no ways. Available from Bookshop, Amazon, and your local independent bookstore.

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