Blue Poll Watcher in a Red State

On Nov. 2, 2004, I serve as a Democratic Party’s poll watcher at my precinct in Cheyenne, Wyoming. “Poll watcher” has a nice ring to it, a term that's used often these days by party loyalists on guard against voting fraud by the other side. If I grow tired of it, I can also choose from “challenger” or “checker.”

Any position with so many possible titles has to be important. So it is with suitable gravity that I drive my minivan to the polls early on Tuesday. It's sunny, although snow dumped in a Halloween blizzard lurks in the shadowy places. It's not yet 7 a.m., but cars back up at the security checkpoint. This is a National Guard base, after all, home to Wyoming Army and Air Guard units, some of which have been to Iraq and others that will be going soon.

An armed Guardsman stands next to a sign that warns visitors about a “mandatory I.D. check.” The base exists in some sort of continuing alert mode due to the ongoing War on Terror being waged even here in Wyoming. I am glad on this day to be a U.S. citizen with bona fide credentials and a clear conscience even though I am an antiwar Democrat and Kerry supporter. But nobody can tell because I removed my Kerry-Edwards pin from my sport coat and covered my Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker with duct tape. It looks suspicious, but party old-timers had cautioned me to remove or cover any Kerry paraphenalia because, if I didn’t, the Republican poll watcher could accuse me of “electioneering.” I didn’t want anything to come between me and my spot at the polls.

I successfully pass through the checkpoint. I expect the next obstacle to be a maze of blast barriers that I negotiated when I voted here in the spring primaries. Fortunately, the powers-that-be had decided to open a gate in the barbed-wire-topped hurricane fence that butt up to the checkpoint. So I roll through the shortcut, ease by an idling Air NG security truck, and find a parking spot near to the low-slung, desert-colored, government-issue building that houses my precinct’s inner sanctum of voting.

A dozen voters wait for the polls to open. A cordial precinct captain shows me to my spot, a metal chair pushed up against a cafeteria table. A computer printout of the precinct’s registered voters sits on the table, marked with “checker” in red, which pretty much predicts how I will spend this day. An identical list lies on the other side of the table. This is for the Republican checker, who has yet to appear (and never does).  

The precinct judge checks my credentials. He's a nice-enough guy, dressed in a dark suit. When I first see him, I think: “Republican.” He is, but I find that out later. “Help yourself to the doughnuts in the break room,” he says, pointing to a door between the voting booths and the vote-counting machine. “There’s plenty of ‘em.”

No time for a doughnut break. The polls open on time and voters stream in. I quickly discover the meaning of "checker." Election officials call out names and I check them off as fast as I can find them. In Wyoming, people can also walk in, register, and vote on election day. The judge faces a steady stream of those. As they register, I have to pencil in their names and political affiliations. Also, a runner from the county clerk’s office brings in a final list of absentee voters, which I also have to check off on my list.

I check up a storm. Lots of Republicans (referred to a REP on the lists), but also a smattering of Democrats (DEM) and Others (OTH). A few Libertarians and Natural Law Party members are on the list. No Prohibition Party, Wyoming Reform, or Communists on the rolls, at least not this early in the day. All told, the precinct has almost 700 voters registered. REPs outnumber DEMs by about 140 registrants; DEMs outnumber OTHs by 230 to 90. That's a lot of DEMs in a REP-dominated state. Not enough, as it turns out.

I wish I could tell you that, as a DEM poll watcher, I uncovered a vast REP conspiracy to subvert the electoral process. But I didn’t. Voters are  cordial, as are the paid polling staff and volunteers like me. But cordiality isn't going to lull me into complacency. I keep my eyes peeled and ears open for anything untoward. I up my sugar level with some REP-purchased doughnuts; top off my caffeine level with some pretty good coffee for stuff brewed in a military base break room. Some well-armed Guard security personnel wander through the building. Sometimes, when the outside doors opens, I hear the take-offs and landings of the base’s choppers and C-130s. “This has got to be the safest polling place in Wyoming,” says one of the gray-haired election ladies. We all laugh, but I wonder, not for the first time, why peaceniks like me are forced to pass through Baghdad Green Zone-style security to get a ballot. It doesn't stop me from voting – not much could – but does it intimidate others?

Wyomingites, as a rule, tend to vote in large numbers. Not guns nor the weather nor terror alerts can keep us from the polls. My first general election in Wyoming was 1992, a good year for DEMs. A blizzard blew through the Rockies that day. I was a bit worried that the snow would dampen the turnout. My fears were allayed when I watched a network broadcast during lunchtime that showed two crusty Wyoming cowboys arriving at the polls in Lusk on horseback. Later, my father called from Florida asking if I had ridden my horse to vote. Such a kidder he was. He knew that I was a wimpy city dweller, allergic to horses and the only guy on his block who didn’t own a gun. That night, I was able to call him (a diehard REP) and rub it in that Bill Clinton was our new president.

At 10 a.m., my wife Chris, a certified poll watcher, arrives to spell me. Early in the 2004 campaign, she had been a Bob Graham supporter. Kerry eventually won her over, but she didn’t like him enough to paste a bumper sticker on her Saturn. Still, she is an involved citizen and never misses an election. Today is the first time both of us have been poll watchers.

I escape for a couple hours. During my break at home, I gnaw on a sandwich and watch CNN. Voters reportedly are turning out in droves. The poll watcher controversy in Ohio has taken still another turn. Dixville Notch, N.H., results show Bush in a landslide. Thus far, voters in Florida have nothing to complain about. Iraq still is a mess verging on a quagmire.  

I return to my station at 1 p.m. Chris reports a brisk lunchtime crowd, with many more walk-up voters. “A lot of Republicans,” she reports. So tell me something I don’t already know.

Crowds are steady all afternoon, even during the usual mid-afternoon lull between 1 and 3. I notice a lot of young voters, Yuppie moms with babies in strollers, a few oldsters. These are my neighbors, but I recognize very few. I play a game called “Spot the Republican” with limited success. A bearded guy in overalls sporting long blond hair could be a Democrat or maybe an Independent. He is a Republican, he and his petite freckled wife. An aristocratic old man and his wife shuffle in the door and they must be Republicans but they’re not. Young Latino men come in to register but not as Democrats. 

What do I look like when walking into the polls? A tall 50-something gray-haired guy in khakis, dress shirt, and tweed sport coat. Maybe the tweed pegs me as a Democrat. The khakis reveal Republican tendencies, as does the button-down shirt. I have no facial hair, which might mean Republican, but I saunter like a Democrat.

Only I know the tormented Catholic progressive that lurks inside. A Dennis Kucinich supporter, a strong believer in his antiwar and social justice agenda. I was a Kucinich delegate to the Democratic state convention. I don’t believe in abortion but am convinced that women should be forced to have children. I love science, so am intrigued by stem-cell research, but also have a Vonnegut-like skepticism of science run amok. I detest being harangued, which is why I haven't been to church in months. The last homily that rained down from the St. Mary's pulpit was a clerical bully’s attempt to tell me how to vote.

Wyoming voters stream into the building as the clock approacheds 5 p.m., which is 7 p.m. on the East Coast and time for some polls to close. My 19-year-old son Kevin registers as a Democrat and votes. Afterwards, he sidles up to my table and asks, “Who did you vote for – Bush?” I laugh. “Sure,” I say, patting him on the shoulder. “I’m glad you came out.” He spells me for a few minutes while I make a few calls and take a bio-break. He then leaves, as he is 19 and has many things to do.

I remember my first vote in a presidential election. I was 21 and living with my girlfriend Sharon on the poor side of Boston’s Beacon Hill. Sharon went off to the burbs to vote, as her parents’ address was still officially hers. My polling place was in an old building down one of The Hill’s many cobblestone streets. I voted for George McGovern, an antiwar South Dakota senator and, like Kerry, a decorated military veteran. McGovern was not reticent about his plans to get U.S. troops out of Vietnam. Kerry, unfortunately, cravenly flip-flopped on his opposition to the Iraq misadventure. In 1971, Kerry and I had been part of the same antiwar demonstration in D.C. On that 1972 election day, the future presidential candidate was voting somewhere in his hometown of Boston.

The 2004 turnout at our well-guarded precinct reached record levels. My figures show some 690 registered voters. More than 100 people register and vote that day. So, say about 790 total possible voters; of these, 674 votes are cast. That’s an 85 percent turnout.

My lists show many more checks that empty spaces. Chris and I have written in a long roster of new voters. All this info will go into the Democratic Party databases and help it do a better job of getting out the vote in 2006 and 2008 and beyond. We live in a red state that will not turn blue any time soon. I can still believe, as the doors close to voters here in Cheyenne, that Kerry will be elected president and Wyoming  might get a Democratic representative in its lone Congressional seat. No matter what happens, I feel charged up to be an engaged citizen who worked actively for a candidate. I was much more mitivated when Kucinich was in the race. But I also know that John Kerry, warts and all, is a better choice than four more years of Bush & Co.    

I thank my precinct colleagues, pick up my voter lists and walk out into the cold night. I am hopeful, yet cautious, as I drive home to get the news about election 2004.

--Michael Shay, Nov. 5, 2004