Mom was up at the crack of dawn on Election Day. Not because she wanted to be first in line to vote, but she had a more compelling reason. As captain of the team of volunteer poll workers, she needed to be at city hall, just across the street, before the voters started pouring in at 7 a.m. And always a stickler for details, mom wanted everything ship shape before the most important day of our democracy began.
Her biggest challenge at the end of the day, was to insure that each vote was counted and that the number of votes matched the number of signatures in that big voter registry document. If there was no match, sometimes she would not be home until after midnight until the “error” was resolved.
Imagine her horror if she was still doing this public service today.
Accounting snafus are now replaced with death threats to those working the elections.
Ask Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson about this ugly change of events.
“We are in an era of political violence,” she laments.
And the host of physical and verbal attacks on poll workers has, in an of itself, taken its own toll.
In the last several years 90,000 of those senior poll volunteers have packed it in. Of course not all of them feared these threats, but enough told the secretary that was the reason.
“Many,” she recounts. “We can’t deny that the rise of the rancor at this moment is real and could lead to an uptick in violent threats against those who are running our elections in the state, and I remain concerned. It continues to be trying to see these everyday men and women continue under such stress and pressure.”
Despite that mountain of resignation slips, the state has managed to re-assemble a new work force to prevent the shutdown of voting stations around the state. This past year 15,000 new faces were on the voter assembly line hoping against hope that peace prevailed.
This past Primary Day voting had only a handful of would-be threatening situations the SOS office reports as just over two million citizens got in the game out of 7 million that were registered. The vast majority were safe as they voted by mail and those who voted during the nine day early voting window did so without long lines.
But November’s vote is a whole new ball game.
5 to 6 million more voters. More possible allegations of voter fraud ala the 2022 balloting.
And more hopes and maybe even some prayers from the state’s chief election officer Ms. Benson that threats are few and far between.
Needless to say what a relief that mom won’t have to be up at the crack of dawn to part of this new “era of violence.”
