Elections

We are having an election in California on June 3rd. I am going to be an inspector again (which is a glorified term for the person who has to pick up all the supplies and set up all the voting booths). When the county calls to give me information or to check on me, they leave the message for "Inspector Van Houten" Doesn't that sound cool!

As I rearrange my calender and work to keep the entire day free of court appearances and rush projects, I must re-examine why am I taking a whole day away from my practice to basically volunteer at the elections (we get paid a whopping $100, not even half of my hourly billing rate). Sure, I like being the captain so to speak, being in charge. Sure, I think elections are very important and I want to do my part to make them run smoothly. But I keep going back to when I was in my early twenties and they wouldn't let me vote. They said that I wasn't registered, even though I had registered and voted in every election. Apparently when I moved, I didn't get notified about my correct polling place. I had no idea where to go and no one would tell me--they just said, no, you can't vote. I was so furious. Now, I know that there is a county phone number to call to find the proper polling place and a method to vote provisionally if someone moves so that their vote will count. The person at the polling place didn't know what they were doing. So I am here to vow that will never happen on my watch.

Then I made a mistake at the last election. It was a primary and if you are undeclared in a particular party, you must first fill in the circle to declare your party and then you can vote. Way at the bottem of the box of supplies that I never had time to go through was a graphic showing the voter where to fill in the circle. I didn't completely unpack until later in the day and a voter came back after voting in the morning to complain that no one had told him to fill in that circle--he wanted his ballot back, because it wouldn't count. It was impossible for me to get his ballot and a provisional ballot also would not help, because he had already signed the book. There was nothing I could do. This lapse of competency (it really was my fault) makes me again question, why am I doing this?

Hillary lost Guam by seven votes. Seven. In Toastmasters we have a world champion speaker who says that he never learned anything by winning, only by losing did he learn to do something better. So hopefully my lapse in competency will teach me to be a better inspector. When races are so close, it is important that every vote is counted properly. Inspector Van Houten, reporting for duty.