Hey Ho, Let’s Go—Wait, You Can’t
Remember the adage, “Vote early. Vote often?”
I remember voting in my first election. It was a presidential election with several local NYC and NYS races. I voted at P.S. 4 on Nedra Lane, off Arden Avenue, Staten Island. Look at the street names. Note the play on words. Since we are talking about elections, a play on words might fit. Some of the candidates I voted for won. Some lost.
Today, I tried early voting in the race for NYS governor and several other offices. I started early voting in 2020, in the race between President Trump and former Vice President Biden. We know the outcome.
I was a poll worker during that election. I did what I did to honor my father. He served as a poll worker in Plant City, Florida, for many years. The stories he told were very different from my experience at “Rock and Roll High School,” Forest Hills High School. That’s the school that saw the birthplace of punk rock courtesy of the Ramones. Simon & Garfunkel, Captain Kangaroo and Leslie West also attended.
I walked over to the Rego Center Community Room, Rego Park, NY, where I have voted early for the last six years. I saw the “Vote Here” signs and a few people standing outside. I remember in 2020, I waited in line for close to an hour. I figured it was the second day of early voting, so there might be a line. In reality, only about six people were outside, and an NYPD car was parked next to the center. An officer was outside.
I had my fast-track card to let them process me and hand me my ballot. I walked up to the door, and a poll worker greeted me. He asked what I planned to do.
I said, “I want to vote.”
He said, “You can’t. We are experiencing a power outage.”
I gazed inside and saw other poll workers milling around with their coffee. My memory flashed back to my early 20s, when I worked for former politicians and ran a few campaigns. This was before we voted electronically. We used those big voting machines. I miss those. Many of us do.
I remember campaign teams going to the warehouse that stored the voting machines a few days before elections for an inspection. We looked at everything. Some machines were missing candidate names or proposal ballots. Some had the names in the wrong place. We told the Board of Elections staff what was wrong, and they fixed it.
Then came election day; we patrolled the voting precincts to make sure people could get in to vote. We handed out literature for our candidates. After the polls closed, we waited for the poll workers to open the machines and report the vote count. We called election HQ with the numbers. At that venue, people sat there with calculators and tabulated the votes from across the Island.
At the end of the evening, we smiled. We cried. The next day came, and we met for breakfast to keep our happiness going or shake off our depression over French Toast or pancakes.
Jumping back to today, I walked out of the polling place and crossed the street. I went back. I asked what power was down. The office lights were on. I saw fans. They said the machines were down. Come back.
I did some Googling. I wanted to see if this was the only spot experiencing this mess or if there was a borough- or citywide failure. Google directed me to the NY Board of Elections site. It told me nothing.
In today’s day and age, when every vote is criticized for legitimacy, this does not bode well. The fact that the poll workers didn’t offer me an emergency ballot to cast my vote, which was the only thing I found in my Google search, is not good.
I will try again in a day or two. I hope the power is on. But what if those who tried to vote this morning don’t get another chance to cast their votes?
Not cool.
