On of our lurkers passed along a link to his friend Sara’s new short film: The Officials.
It’s non paywalled at Time.com, and it’s about the people in the trenches who organize and staff elections in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Florida. It features people whose names you might not recall, but you will likely recall the stories about them. Like Meagan Wolfe – remember the woman the Republicans tried to throw out of office in in Wisconsin?
Sara Archambault is a Sundance Documentary Lab fellow, and works at the Kennedy School of Govt. at Harvard. Here previous feature, No Time To Fail, was about election officials in Rhode Island in the 2020 election.
These people take their jobs, and the sanctity of elections, so seriously. It must be exponentially painful when the lies are spread and they are attacked for their good work.
If you have time, take a few minutes and watch it for inspiration.
The Officials: a 25-minute film
Otherwise, open thread!
TBone
I watched the movie ‘Amsterdam’ the other day (mixed reviews but I really liked it). One of its themes is every day, regular “little people” changing/making history.
Omnes Omnibus
Meagan Wolfe and I overlapped for a few months at the at the WI GAB. She had just been hired as an entry level elections specialist when I was winding up my tenure there. I wouldn’t have marked her as being the fierce election watchdog that she has been. She was just a pleasant coworker.
trollhattan
Stop promising me a good time.
Xavier
I always make a point of thanking election workers for their service.
KrackenJack
KrackenJill and I are finishing up our 1000 Postcards to Swing States today, We got Ohio addresses, so they could be for Sherrod Brown. P4SS also does critical state legislature races, too.
Ours will be the third postcard for these voters. We’ll send them the week before the election. We both went with the “Your vote is private, but who you vote for is public record.” Their research shows it’s up to three times as effective as the next best statement. That’s enough for me to get over my discomfort.
Now to see what else we can do…
Old School
@KrackenJack:
Huh?
Elizabelle
@KrackenJack: I think you meant “ that you vote is public record.”
Anyway, props for doing all the postcards. That has got to help.
H.E.Wolf
Thank you for the link to the film, and the shout-out to election officials of integrity. I’ll look forward to watching it!
KrackenJack
@Old School:
@Elizabelle:
Correct! I shouldn’t post without my morning tea…
japa21
I’ve been an election judge since 2016. This year I will also be 2working the early voting site. 16 days straight, last day being el3ection day. The 1st 15 are basically 9 hour days, the last one is 15. A lot of people don’t realize how much dedication these workers have. As one person in the film states, “It is worthy”.
Yes they get paid, but compared to the time put in, it really isn’t a lot. And since the pandemic, the number of people willing to do the work has dropped. Suburban Cook County standard is 5 judges for each precinct. I have worked the last 3 elections with 2 or 3 per precinct.
Anybody who suggests that election judges are corrupt gets a major pushback.
Uncle Cosmo
Just FTR, I read that message as
Fifty years back, when voting machines were all the rage, there was a saying amongst pols: Only God and the machine know who you voted for; God’s not telling and the machine can’t.
Omnes Omnibus
@japa21: The worst thing I found when I was working in election regulation is the some of the 90 year olds working the polls were working to execute faithfully the rules that were in effect when they originally trained in 1972. Their commitment to doing a good and fair job is something I would hesitate to question.
rodwell
@japa21:
I have been an election since 2020. I signed up based on posts there was not enough poll workers. I have been doing for election since. On Election day, I will start at 5:00 AM and finish around 9:00 PM. I will get paid $300. I am not doing this for the money. There is a core group at my Ward that show I every election. Our goal is that everyone that walks in cast a ballot either on the machine or provisional. I also get upset when people question the ethics on the individuals running this elections.
Mousebumples
Thanks to everyone for postcarding or working at the polls!
I look forward to watching this video later, thanks!
Motivated Seller
Has anyone ever seen the movie, “Defendor” (2009)? That was the first thing that popped in my mind when I read this title. Probably worth watching after the embedded clip of the post.
Betty
I am an overseas voter registered in Pennsylvania so I received my ballot by email weeks ago. Today I was notified that my ballot has been received. Now I just hope everything is A-OK. My signature has suffered some deterioration over the years, and I know some folks looking to reject ballots carefully compare the current one to the original one. In this case that was some forty years ago.
wjca
What gets me are the people who argue for fraud. Invariably they have no clue at all how the whole counting process works. I walk them thru it, from the time the voter walks in the door until the statewide results are posted. Then ask, where, exactly, in this process do you see an opportunity to fiddle the results?
And they got nuthin’. Because, absent a conspiracy of hundreds of people, with 100% perfect security, it simply can’t be done — at least not without immediate and high profile reporting. And nobody ever sees such reports with any credibility.
Gloria DryGarden
@wjca: I agree. I was an election poll worker in 2020, and as I was trained it was clear the system is Water tight. No way to commit fraud. Very close to impossible.
Because potential fraud was being discussed, I made a mental game of looking for where anyone could cheat. Nope. I found half of a way, once, but it was so hypothetical and far fetched. Just nope. Not bloody likely. At all.