Election day was Tuesday, as everyone knows. This year, we decided to get absentee ballots, since we didn't know when Fox was coming, and how Michelle would feel on election day. Since he came early, and Michelle was fine by then, we decided to go vote normally. Late Monday night, as I was holding Fox in my arms, I took the absentee ballots and filled them out with the only pen within reach. A red one. We were only going to use these ballots as a voting guide anyway, so I thought that was fine.
Michelle went to vote during the day, and had to go see the clerk at our precinct because we had "ruined" our ballots. They had to be invalidated, then they could give us a new ballot to vote with. Since they were expecting our ballots to be mailed in, they had to call into the home office and jump through a few hoops to get her set up. All of this would fine, but the clerk at our precinct made things very difficult for her. She was an older lady, and not very pleasant...and she kept lecturing Michelle about how she should not have done this, and they've never seen this kind of thing before, etc... She eventually was able to vote (after almost leaving out of frustration at the clerk), and she went home.
She called me and warned me about the clerk and the trouble she had, so when I went after work, I made sure to be extra nice to the woman to try and smooth things over. She was expecting me, though. As soon as I told her who I was, she started in on me. First she lectured me about ruining an official ballot, then she asked me why I didn't just mail the ballot in. I told her we had a three-week old baby, and haven't had a lot of time to devote to picking our candidates and deciding on the issues. She just kept going and going. Finally I said "Ma'am, I'm sorry. We made a mistake, we didn't know this would cause a problem. It won't happen again".
You would think this would appease her, but no. She then asked me why didn't I just read the instructions on the envelope? That would have prevented all of these problems. I told her "I'M SORRY, WE'VE BEEN A LITTLE BUSY WITH A THREE WEEK OLD BABY." I was very firm, but polite. She finally got me a new ballot and I went to the little booth to start marking it.
Here's where it gets fun.
As I'm standing there marking my shiny new ballot, no more than 8 feet away from the clerk at her station, I hear her tell her associate the following: "Having a new baby is no excuse, they should have just read the instructions on the envelope. It just goes to show you how stupid some people can be."
Now, I try to be pretty easy-going, and I don't like to cause a scene. But I don't do well with being called stupid. I had made a simple mistake, that's all. I stood there growing increasingly angry (like
Mr. Furious over there --->) and tried to decide what to do. Luckily I realized I was standing in a church, and that yelling and turning over tables probably wouldn't help my witness much.
Michelle had already told me that she was going to call the Supervisor of Elections and complain, so I thought I would just go that route and let him handle it. I made it a point to remember her statement exactly, so that I could have Michelle quote what she said to her boss. I turned in my ballot to a very friendly man, and walked out.
Now, every other poll worker in that precinct was extremely nice and easy to work with. I feel sorry for them that they had to deal with this woman all day long. I came home and had Michelle write down the clerk's exact quote, and she called the Supervisor of Elections (
Ion Sancho) the next day. She ended up getting his cell phone number, and she got to speak with him directly. He was very understanding, and the woman will be dealt with directly. He talked to Michelle for almost 45 minutes. I think Michelle was pretty satisfied with her chat with him, so I can only hope that this clerk won't be there next time.
And yes, the ballot in the witch picture is the actual ballot for our precinct.
