Tales of a California Election Inspector | 2022 Mid-Terms
There are a lot of reasons I work as an election clerk, and now as an “Election Inspector” — which is basically just an on-site supervisor. Yesterday was Election Day for the 2022 midterms. Any election day can be a long day for vote center clerks - we often start at 6am and work til the last ballot is cast and safely on its way to be counted… for our team yesterday that was 6am to finally getting home around 11pm. But helping voter’s vote is well worth those long days and if you’ve ever been curious about working an election in California, there are great resources on our Secretary of State’s website.
I made a large illustration of the state capitol with “Ballot Doodles” in all 58 counties of California over the course of 11-day term at our Sacramento County Vote Center in the California Museum.
It’s a pleasure and honor to help every voter get their ballot in the box. I love it. The 11-days we were open at the California Museum leads to a lot of highlights and reminders of why I enjoy doing this work. It also tends to be high profile as our California Governor Gavin Newsom and first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom often pick it as the place to cast their ballot. This year it was an extra neat treat for me to see them enjoy the “Vote California” stickers I had custom made exclusive to voters at our vote center. I like to try and make the right to vote a joy rather than feel like a chore by making illustrations and cartoony ballots for people to enjoy should we have lines. And it’s been great how encouraging the California Museum staff has been about that.
Anyway, that’s all a rad historic treat, but my highlight of election day was an experience different sort of voting story.
A young Black woman came in to vote —I’m gonna call her “Kelsey” just to keep this anonymous— and our check-in clerk was having trouble checking Kelsey in to vote. Our clerk at the time is also working the California elections for the first time. She recently moved from Florida and had insights into the differences. She pointed out she vastly preferred how we do things in California. (And that’s largely thanks to California’s Voter’s Choice Act)
Kelsey was in a unique situation because she’d just moved to a new apartment and needed to re-register. The problem was we were having trouble finding her address to move forward with her same-day registration& get her ballot cast.
Kelsey insisted her address was her address —just like anybody would— so we went back and forth about it a few times. Asking things like are you sure it’s a “Street” vs. “Avenue” and because we couldn’t figure out what to do, I called our Operations Center to help get her registered and a vote in the ballot box.
Even though I’m a pretty friendly bearded giant — being a white dude on the phone with a supervisor doesn’t always look friendly.
Even though I was encouraging, I could tell it was starting to make Kelsey a bit nervous — like I might be getting her in trouble, after all, she can’t hear the other side of the call who was as determined as me to help Kelsey vote.
Eventually, for whatever reason, she her hesitations got the best of her and she simply gave up said “Nevermind.” and began to leave. I passed the phone off to my co-inspector and walked outside after Kelsey and calmly just explained that we were almost across the finish line, that I was really only interested it helping her vote, and that her vote and voice matters and that’s all I was doing on the phone.
I was relieved Kelsey came back and with renewed patience & determination and we found the error with a little troubleshooting. It was a really forgivable mistake when you’ve just moved, and once we got her corrected address, we got her voter registration sorted, and we got her ballot in the box.
She told me it was her first time voting.
And she almost didn’t.
But, nevertheless, she did.
I believe every vote is important, only she knows how or who she voted for — I’m simply glad she did. Her first ballot likely laid next to the same ballots cast by our state’s Governor and a myriad of other voters who our team helped. I personally love to think about how the ballot box is a great equalizer. One vote. One person. But together we shape our future.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. Enjoy some more sampling of the doodles I made during the election.
Additional California Voter Resources
Ballot Tracking : https://california.ballottrax.net/voter/
Update Your Voter Registration: https://registertovote.ca.gov
