Another Tuesday at the Polls

Tuesday was another voting day in Alabama, or at least in Madison County. I say voting day rather than Election Day because the vote was for a special amendment rather than to elect someone into office. Once again, I worked at my precinct and believe me when I tell you, it was a long, long day.

The vote was to combine the tax assessors and tax collector’s office and either not many people knew about it or not many people cared because we only voted a total of 131 people, 96 of whom voted no. .

There were five of us working and I was the last to arrive at 6:00 a.m. I guess everyone else arrived a few minutes before 6:00. When I pulled up I kind of felt like a rebel as everyone else was driving a white vehicle and I pulled up in a black one. Is there a certain age you reach when a white car is required because it seems a lot of older people drive white cars; maybe my Aunt Linda could let us know, not that she’s older or anything, just wise. The precinct was set up on Monday night so there really wasn’t too much to do when we arrived other than sign all the papers and envelopes in preparation for the end of the day. Before we opened my stomach felt kind of upset which concerned me; but thankfully that passed quickly.

Surprisingly, we had one guy arrive a few minutes before the polls opened at 7:00 a.m. Once we opened up, he came in and cast his vote. After 10 minutes or so when we had no one else coming in, I went ahead and voted second. By the time the first hour had passed, we had voted a whopping 14 people. Like I said, it was a slow day. Most of us brought things to work on or keep us otherwise occupied during the slow periods. I brought my Kindle and played games and read and also brought my computer to work on some blog posts and of course had my phone as well. One lady brought her Christmas cards to address and another lady brought hers to make (she makes homemade cards for Christmas every year) and another lady brought a book to read.

I think I’ve mentioned before that at my precinct location, Jackson Way Baptist Church, there is a daycare and the lady that cooks for the daycare, and also for the church, sometimes brings us pie or other goodies. This time when it came time for lunch, she hooked us up with pinto beans and cornbread and coleslaw and sweet tea. The lunch was quite good and very filling and made me want a big ole nap afterwards.

The rest of the afternoon was much of the same. A few people trickled in every now and then and cast their lots and finally 7:00 p.m. came and we were able to shut things down, wrap things up and head to our respective homes by 7:17. It was a long and, to be honest, a boring day; but, once again I was able to have a front row view of democracy and that is what I love most about this great country of ours.