Appreciation for democracy enhanced

As I write this, I am sitting in the hallways of the Waseca County Courthouse outside the Office of Property and Election Services. People are bustling back and forth as election results arrive. Thanks to the voting machines, department head Tammy Spooner tells me, it could be less than half an hour from the time a set of votes is delivered in a distinctive, neon-green case to the time the secretary of state has record of the numbers.

But that’s a best-case scenario.

For one thing, the cases are arriving pell-mell, sometimes five and six within a few minutes of each other. For another, there’s no way to know when the next electronic glitch or human misinterpretation might occur.

Not that any mistakes are going to make their way into the results. The crew of eight counters are working meticulously to answer questions, double check details, and ensure accuracy. After all, they took an oath promising to carry out their duties faithfully. It’s being meticulous which requires the time.

Tammy Spooner has been very patient with me. I keep asking questions about details that probably seem obvious to her.  There are 23 precincts in Waseca County. Two are within blocks of the courthouse–one at Sacred Heart and the other at St. John’s Lutheran. The votes which will have to travel the longest distance will be coming from Waldorf. 

According to law, there must be at least three election judges at each precinct; all are trained by Tammy’s office. All are also paid, but by the city or township where the precinct is located, rather than by the county.

Tammy informs me that, come this April, she will have been working with elections for 19 years. She mentions that, within days of being employed by the county, she attended a training session regarding the first “ballot counter,” the machine voters feed their completed ballots into. Nowadays, those machines save the information to an electronic memory stick and a long run of “tape.” It is thanks to those advances that results can be reported so quickly.

Also, since it’s a primary election, the evening is fairly quiet compared to what Tammy anticipates in November–speaking casually she estimates “it will be about 10 times more, but will feel like 100 times.” She also shares stories told to her by others who took on the task of tallying election results before she came along.

“My predecessor tells me the office used to work all day, then count votes all night. When they finished, they would all go out together for breakfast. Then they would go home, shower, dress, and report back to work.

Let me just say, I am selfishly grateful those days are over.  It’s 10 p.m. now. All results are in; 16 of the 23 precincts have been processed. The folks at the heart of things estimate they will have the final counts by 11 p.m. at the latest.

That’s certainly late enough for this reporter. But I’m not too tired to observe that I’m impressed with the thoroughness, care, and professionalism with which the votes are being handled. Yet again, my appreciation for democracy has been enhanced.