Probably not gonna toot a lot more now. It’s the after-work rush. And once 7pm hits it’s all #electionofficer work. Surprisingly heavy turn out. Surprising me mainly because I thought a lot of early #voting would reduce the load. But we had dozens of same-day registrations! So they were unexpected voters. Hard to anticipate.

I’ll toot out some final thoughts after 8:30 or 9:00pm EDT
#election2024 #electionday #uspol

And now a funny goof I did as an #electionofficer earlier.

A woman walked up to the check-in table and handed me her ID. The system comes back with nothing. So I search and she’s not in there. She mentions that she has changed her name. So I search a bit more. Nothing. I search by address. Nothing.

Finally the officer next to me leans over and asks “are you registered to vote?”
“No.” She answers.

Face palm.

So I’m asking a little sooner now when someone strides up and then they’re not in the system at all.

#election2024 #electionday #uspol

Finally something kinda funny happened. Voter came in and the officer next to me knew her so he’s checking her in and they’re chatting. He asks her to say her legal name (part of the process in Virginia) and she accidentally says the wrong last name. (Not sure if perhaps a former partner’s name or just a maiden name). They chuckle and she’s embarrassedly saying “don’t tell my husband!” It was all sweet and familiar and funny (not creepy, which it can seem when I write it that way). Just neighbours chuckling with neighbours in their polling place.

#election #electionofficer #electionday #election2024 #uspol

Ooh. You may have read in the news that the OSCE is sending election observers to the US for this #electionday . We just had 2 Italian women arrive and ask a few questions and chat a little. They are not official observers (meaning they didn’t present a letter from the county board of elections) so they can’t hang around like authorized observers. But we had a quick chat and shared numbers and info that we would share with any member of the public.

npr.org/2024/10/16/nx-s1-51348…

#election2024 #electionofficer #uspol

Continuing my #electionday #electionofficer live mega thread. Scroll up to see more, mute the thread to see less, without blocking me entirely.

One fun thing we do in my precinct that I enjoy is yelling “first time VOTERRR!” And cheering a little when people are voting for the first time. We don’t know it from their records. But if they say something we cheer.

I’m sure I have also processed a few fiftieth-time (or more!) #voters and I wish we could celebrate them also.

#election #election2024 #uspol

We love it when parents bring kids to #vote. We have stickers! We make sure the kids get the “Future Voter” stickers.

Around 10:00am we had 5 voters and 6 kids. More kids than voters!

This year we have special “presidential election” stickers. First time I’ve seen those.
#electionofficer #election2024 #electionday #uspol

You might wonder “Paco, are you sharing details about #election #security that you shouldn’t share?” I have a high regard for #Fairfax County #Virginia. They make a lot of their #voting training public. You can see the training that I was given on their YouTube channel. All the details I’m sharing are in that training.

I really think they do it right. I have no complaints about how the County does things. But sometimes I think State law is not great. So we follow the law but that can be annoying sometimes.

#electionday #election2024 #electionofficer #uspol

m.youtube.com/@fairfaxcountyel…

Fairfax County Election Officers

Election officer training videos from the Fairfax County Office of Elections

^YouTube

It’s a little unusual to have this much food in our #electionofficer break room. Seems like lots of people brought food to share.

We start our day at 5:00am, polls open at 6:00am. Polls close at 7:00pm and we usually get to leave about 8:30 or 9:00pm. The rules are that officers may not leave the #polls during the day. So you have to bring any food, drink, medicines, or anything else you might need during the day. Or you have to have a wonderful partner like I do, who brings you dinner toward the end of the day. Dress in layers, comfortable shoes, you know the drill.

I usually bring a thermos of coffee, some snacks, and a lunch. I always have a couple ibuprofen in my bag just in case.
#uspol #electionday #election2024

A little live tooting from my job as an #electionofficer on #election2024 .

It’s calm and quiet in 904 - Stonecroft, in #fairfax #virginia. We are nicely over staffed and over prepared. There’s about 2000 registered voters in the precinct and we’ve seen around 100 so far. That might sound low, but it’s hard to judge.

In 2020, I was in a precinct that had about 3200 voters. It had record turnout, like 78%. So around 2500 people voted. But we only saw about 1000 in the polling place on #electionday. So just because the in-person turnout sounds low, we might actually have lots of voting.

This year Virginia started early voting on September 20. So since that date people can go to a number of satellite polling places and vote. And of course there’s absentee by mail or by dropbox.

More as it happens.