REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK, Dateline Emerson—All in all, it was not what I expected, or was told to expect, by folks who warned me to be careful, noting things might get ugly, or even worse, violent at the polls.
None of that happened: no ugliness, no violence, and it was pretty much that way at all the polling places in the Pascack Valley, and statewide, too.
On Nov. 5, 2024, Presidential Election Day in America, I woke up at 3:15 a.m., made coffee, had breakfast, and drove from my residence to the Emerson Junior-Senior High School to serve as a poll worker in Emerson’s District 6.
I would leave the polling place nearly 16 hours later, tired but feeling good after my fellow poll workers and I assisted a total of 350 registered voters to cast ballots in one of the most contentious and closely watched presidential contests, with many dire predictions coming from both sides of the aisle.
Days later, however, Mayor Danielle DiPaola told me that my assigned location was the least busy of three polling sites in Emerson, although we generally had voters coming in regularly.
The two other polling sites, one at Emerson’s Senior Center, and one at Patrick M. Villano Elementary School were both busier, pulling in up to a couple thousand voters apiece. The senior center drew from three voting districts and Villano School from two.
Even one of our assigned poll workers, Hugh, later volunteered to assist at one of the sites. Thanks, Hugh!
We drew from only one district at the high school, much to my surprise. I cannot imagine how busy the other two sites must have been. Words like “they’re being crushed” and “the lines are out the door” were used to describe the scenes at both sites.
If there was ever a warning (or a powerful reminder) to please take advantage of New Jersey’s nine-day early voting period, or vote-by-mail, the lines on Election Day spoke volumes.
I had requested any polling site in our coverage area to allow myself to experience the reality of Election Day in one Pascack Valley town. I was assigned to the Emerson location — one of three local polling places — by the county Board of Elections. I guess I just lucked out.
Prior to Nov. 5, I took the required poll worker training course at the County Courthouse in Hackensack before the June 4 Primary Election (which I worked at a polling station in Tenafly) and I took another required poll worker training course in September to be updated on new poll worker procedures for the highly contested presidential election.
What I found upon my 5 a.m. arrival
On Election Day, I arrived at the Emerson Junior-Senior High School’s art room a little before 5 a.m., to join at least seven other “older” poll workers, and about 10 student poll workers, mostly seniors at the high school who were recruited and trained by the Board of Elections to help assist with poll operations and find out how our elections work in a democracy.
Within the next half-hour, we all worked together to assist set-up of two ballot marking devices (or digital voting machines) and two ballot scanner devices, which would tabulate the votes cast that day by 350 residents over our 14-hour shift, from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. John, an employee with the municipal clerk’s office, had set up the poll worker registration iPads before we arrived.
Moreover, Acting Borough Clerk Michelle Ryan stopped by and reassigned about four of our students to another polling location, leaving us about a half-dozen students. At 6 am on the dot, we opened the polling site and processed our first surge of Election Day voters without incident.
I must say throughout the day, both Ryan and Deputy Clerk Triessa DeSimone stopped by multiple times to check up on us, offer encouragement, and see how things were going. Their support and concern to help and assist the voters was most reassuring.
Overall, we had 344 regular voters and six provisional voters throughout the day, some coming in bunches and intermittently during the morning, with periodic surges of five to 10 voters, and steadily through the day, though at some points after lulls of 10–15 minutes with no voters, we got a chance to add more ballot paper to the voting machines and shared conversations with our fellow poll workers.
All of my Election Day poll coworkers, from Super Board Worker (i.e. supervisor) Kevin, along with Terry, Kathy, Margaret, Ray, and Hugh (my apologies if anyone was left out), and about a half-dozen students who worked an eight-hour day due to most not being 18 years old — all were a pleasure to spend Election Day with.
Most of all, while my fellow poll workers got down to business helping residents with questions and assisting voters through the voting process, all were friendly, good-natured, sociable and generally good company on a long Election Day, especially given the pre-election anxiety and divisiveness wrought by two presidential candidates with opposing views and visions of a future America.
When the polls opened, some older poll workers and students staffed the voter check-in tables, where voter registrations were checked via poll pads, or iPads, that listed all registered voters. After verifying the voter’s name, address, registration, and date of birth if a similar name appears, the voter must sign the poll pad, and also the Voting Authority Pad, and the poll worker then issued a printed slip with an activation code for the voting machine. The students working check-in were amazingly fast and accurate, working the iPads easily to keep folks moving.
The number code indicates whether the voter is a “regular voter” which most were, or a “provisional voter,” which meant there was a question about their voting status. In that case, provisional voters would do a regular ballot, plus some additional paperwork, and that ballot would be put aside and held for later vetting before being counted.
I started out helping voters scan their paper ballots into the ballot scanning (tabulating) machine, which tabulated all votes. Each paper ballot, which created a paper trail for vote counting and audits, would go through the scanner. On the scanner screen, the voter would see a “vote successfully cast” notation when their ballot was scanned.
Voters would walk from the voting machines — formally called Ballot Marking Devices or BMDs — with their ballots in a privacy folder so no other voter or poll worker could view them. Then the poll worker, such as myself, would show the voter how to scan the ballot.
Best of all, I got to give out the much-coveted I Voted Today stickers that almost everyone took and placed somewhere on a shirt or jacket. Even youngsters, most too young to vote, were happy to get an official sticker.
Every two hours, we were required to take note of the numbers of votes cast on both of the polling place’s ballot scanning devices.
Not surprisingly, minor glitches, which occur during any election, occurred rarely during the day.
In addition to several voters showing up at the wrong polling place, and someone who had a wrong address listed on their registration, early excitement occurred when someone wearing a MAGA hat entered the polling place. Once told that no one is allowed to wear campaign items in a polling place, which is considered “electioneering,” the voter removed the hat.
As campaigning of any sort is prohibited at a polling place, campaign items, such as clothing, buttons, signs, campaign literature and flyers are prohibited, and any form of campaigning must be conducted at least 100 feet or more from the front entrance of the polling place.
Mostly during the day, I provided assistance to voters using one of the county’s Dominion digital voting machines, which were used for the first time in a presidential election. The new machines were purchased in 2023, replacing previous machines that were 30-plus years old, and used in primary, general and special elections over the last two years.
Upon being handed the voter’s paper slip, which was printed by the iPad at registration, I typed in the activation code on the voting machine, told the voter how to access the ballot, review the ballot, hit the print button, and then hit the “print your ballot” box. Most importantly, I told the voter to wait for the green check box to appear on the screen before removing their ballot.
A large dark curtain encircling the digital voting booth allowed each voter to have complete privacy in voting.
Also, fortunately, not a single voter removed the printed ballot before it finished printing on both sides. For those new to the machines, the ballot comes out, stops, and then goes back in to finish printing on the reverse side. While voters had questions and some got stuck about what button to hit next, overall most voters were in and out of the voting machine in less than a minute.
Upon exiting the voting machine with their printed ballots, I asked the voter to place his/her paper ballot into a privacy folder and take it to the poll worker at the ballot scanning device. Throughout the day, voters commented on how efficient the new voting system was and some thought it might take longer or had heard it was more difficult than it was.
It appeared most residents who came to the District 6 voting place were in one of two categories: either they knew what they were doing and had used the machines previously, or admitted they weren’t sure about the machine and requested some assistance.
In either case, most voted in a minute or less with helpful tips and guidance freely offered.
Halfway through the afternoon, Mayor DiPaola popped by with Dunkin’ coffee and donuts, a box of single-size bags of assorted chips, and peaches to shore up our flagging energy reserves. Also, one resident donated home baked chocolate chip cookies for all the poll workers. Both were generous gestures that provided a quick sugar fix and much appreciated.
After polls closed at 8, our poll workers helped compile final machine tabulations, the shutdown and securely locking of all elections equipment, and the secure removal of all paper ballots and Secure Digital (SD) cards from each ballot scanning device.
Once all the tally sheets from machines were signed off by the poll workers, a Bergen County sheriff’s officer escorted all the election equipment and material back to the County Clerk’s office in Hackensack for checking, verifying, and the posting of “unofficial” election results later that night.
I left around 8:35 and got home a little before 9. All in all, a very long and worthwhile day in helping my fellow Americans vote and exercise their democratic freedoms.
On Election Day, whatever your party, we were all voters, all citizens, all Americans privileged to have the right and freedom to vote in a democratic republic. May we long have that right and freedom!
Staff writer Michael Olohan covers local issues across the Pascack and Northern valleys. He voted early on Oct. 31 in River Vale, with a five-minute wait. This column reflects his views and not necessarily those of The Press Group or its affiliates. Contact him at olohan@thepressgroup.net.