We The People

It's rather odd that I've never realized just how an election gets pulled off. I watch TV, they announce results (sometimes early, sometimes not), and the TV reporters do some stories about the clerk's office and the polling locations. I worked a poll around twelve years ago, but honestly don't remember much about it. I believe I was a clerk that signed voters in. I remember sitting around a lot and goofing off with my friend who called me at 6:30 in the morning to get me there as an emergency (AFTER I closed up my Papa John's store at 2am!).

Being a commissioner was a vastly different experience. I walked into the Country Clerk's office right at 6am and about 100 people were sitting around talking, moving about, and staying out of the way of a film crew (yes I'm likely in yet another film). We were given Oath of Office forms to sign and the guy next to me asked to borrow my pen. This was how I met Tyrone, my partner for the day. Neither one of us had a partner so we decided to be the Bipartisan Team of Brian & Tyrone (BTB&T). My name goes first because I'm writing the story!

The teams stood in line to get our shopping bags of absentee ballots. A new track record of over 27,000 ballots needed to go out! Luckily BTB&T were standing next to the table so we were fourth to get our bags. I felt really sorry for the two elderly ladies that were assigned three large, full bags. Then we were handed six! We got the bags to the sheriff's desk and I pulled out the address list. We had twenty-one precients, but I wanted to figure out which precients and the corresponding envelopes were in the same building. Whoever said the route list would be in a proper routing format LIED! It was in numerical order by precient. Okay 053, 058, and 088 are in the same elementary school, three other precients are in the baptism church I was at two weeks ago, these two precients are in a fire station, etc. Lucky for me all this stuff was in Lawrence where I live! The bad news is that it was in the eastern half that I'm not too familiar with. (I'm a west-sider. Anything past Fort Ben isn't as familiar to me.) Two-third of the precients were on Oaklandon Road SOMEWHERE so I asked Tyrone if it would make sense just to go up Oaklandon and then figure out where the rest of the envelopes and bags needed to go. I would soon discover Tyrone's decision making skills appeared to be "yeah, that sounds good to me Brian." The captain of BTB&T appeared to be me.

We stumbled into the rain to meet the third member of BTB&T our cab driver. Next up in the queue was Adid, a wannabe MBA student from Nigeria who had been in the U.S. for three years total. Though I didn't realize it at the time the guardianship of our great democracy was in the hands of a cynical, unemployed man who didn't care who won the presidential election as long as his unemployment check kept coming in the mail; a Nigerian with a green card, no sense of direction, and a cabbies license who had no idea where anything was in the City of Indianapolis, and your resident manic-depressive third year law student. WE ARE THE PEOPLE!!!

For those not familiar with Indianapolis, the downtown core is centrally located with Lawrence occupying the northeastern section. The fastest way to Lawrence is to take the interstate. Just follow the signs that say NORTH or EAST and you'll be going in the right direction. Admittily many on/off-ramps in downtown are directionally specific. Market Street hits SOUTHBOUND I-70, New York hits NORTHBOUND I-70, and many streets are one-ways which will drive people nuts if they're unfamiliar with downtown. Adid got us on some northbound street and I figured we would hit New York St and take that to the ramp we needed. Adid cruised by New York St. Tyrone and I looked at each other and mentioned the onramp was behind us now. We looped around and passed New York again (though going south this time). We proceed up the Market St ramp towards SOUTHBOUND I-70. The higher up the ram we were the slower we went. BTB&T just looked at each other with ashen faces.

Hey Adid we can't hit Lawrence from here. Why not just loop around on the next exit? (speeding up) Like Fletcher St. here!!!!!!! Oh which way do I need to go? Do I go straight? (looks at sign above street light that points to the left to get back onto I-70) I navigate through the triangular maze to get back to the interstate (Yeah that right lane turns right. Just follow that car. (Looks through window) Ok, you're clear to hit the right lanes. You are clear to merge into the right lanes to take 70 east. HEY ADID, WE NEED TO MERGE NOW INTO THE RIGHT LANES!) Five minutes later: Hey do we need to take 465 north or south? (At least he asked.) As we passed the boobie bars on Pendleton Pike I noted that if we just took this one turn here I could be home and asleep and not in this dream of democracy. (Yes if you approach my casa from a certain direction boobie bars become the landmarks of reference. I usually route folks up to 56th St just so I can avoid this issue.)

BTB&T got to the church and brought in the first shopping bag. We found the Inspector handed him two envelopes and then waited. And waited. And waited. I have no idea what the Inspector's duties are, but they often take him away from my absentee ballots! The Inspector is supposed to go into the envelope, whip out the list of ballots I'm giving him/her, and double check that the ballots I'm giving over are the same as is what are on the list I'm providing. If the envelope only has twenty ballots this doesn't take long. The 4 inch thick brick took awhile! Back to the cab as I looked at the list to figure out what station was next.

It was so convenient to have 3 polling places right next to each other. A church, a school, and a fire station were all across the street or next to each other and that was five precients of envelopes! It was after 7am and the lines were huge, especially at the elementary school. It was nice to just show my flimsy badge and cut in line to find the officials. The rule seems to be if BTB&T brings ballots, then food is offered. Nice agreement I believe. Oh potato casserole. Oh yummy doughnut. Yes some OJ would be nice. This is good chili, thank you. Polling stations exist on potluck meals it seems to me. This would later prove useful as a method of identifying locations.

At the baptism church I run into our Republican Law Coalition president who is one of the Inspectors there. Hey Brian what are you doing here? I am Santa Brian and I bring thee absentee ballots. Cool! So we chat about the events of the day so far. Always good to see a familiar and friendly face. Also see MORE news cameras. I try to run and hide. I also want to kill the Inspector who wants to double check my ballots against his polling book! That is an old rule and you don't need to do that with me WAITING there. You check against the book on your own time before feeding the ballots into the machine. Some folks listen to BTB&T when we tell them the proper rule. Others don't listen to BTB&T. When it is a thick envelope is when I sigh deeply in frustration.

BTB&T keeps running into Brian Bosma (who will later be the Speaker-elect of the House for the General Assembly based on who won the statehouse). Politicians cruise through the polls in their districts to press the flesh. Mr. Bosma does recognize me and I explain that I'm a law student and he's likely seen me around in the Black Hole. Tyrone is amazed I'm a law student at this point. Before I was saying I was a student on campus (quite true), but never mentioned a major or degree. I didn't want it to affect the working relationship. So do you want to do criminal work? No I haven't decided yet on anything.

We got lost in Geist. My fault as I got turned around with the map. When we hit the really, really, really nice homes on the reservoir I knew we went too far north. All our polling places were in the Slums of Geist.

We're almost finished with our six bags of envelopes and I realize one feel over. I thought it was one of our receipts. Worse it belongs to a place we already visited so we'll have to backtrack a bit. Dude where is Amy Beverland at? It was the school that had the three precients in that big gym. (blank stare) The school across from that strip mall were we had lunch. (blank stare) The school that had the really spicy egg casserole that we liked. Oh yeah that place let's go back! One envelope later we're back on track.

Time didn't seem to affect crowds. Most places were pretty busy no matter what time we arrived. Some lines were over 2 hours long in the rain. Other places were calmer, but had pretty busy for them times earlier that day. I felt bad when I finally delivered The Brick. This envelope was a SOLID 4 X 12 inch brick of absentee ballots. The shopping bag that held The Brick was completely shredded by this point. It took the inspector over 40 minutes to check off the list (okay she kept getting interrupted but still it was huge). Tyrone and I made a bet at somepoint to figure out when we would leave there. We both lost.

Everything on our delivery route made sense if you looked at a map and saw an upside down J for the most part. Except for this one fire station that was way off the beaten paty near the country line (our last delivery). Adid had a mapbook in the cab and I'm trying to figure out how to get there from here while avoiding the construction that cut the normal route in half. I wondered how everyone else was doing. Were things slow for them? Was this good pacing? I didn't know, but I knew we would be sent out as soon as we got back. After fourty minutes in the fire station (the Inspector kept having to do inspecting things as she counted our ballots) we finally leaving at 3:05. Ran into my friend Rebecca from ILR. She was freezing so I helped warm up her hands a bit at least which was appreciated. Tyrone asked her if I was smart? Luckily Rebecca said yes. I'm glad someone sticks up for me.

BTB&T sprawled out in the back of the cab. I told Adid to just take 46th St to the interstate so we could get back downtown. I finally closed my eyes. I noticed when Adid cruised past 46th St, but I figured there are other ways to get downtown and didn't care anymore. Brian, we're going to Martinsville! My blurry eyes open up and I'm trying to figure out what's wrong. Lawrence is in the northeast side. After 30 seconds I figured the cab was near the airport on the SOUTHWEST side of the city. WTF!!!! Luckily Adid slowed down to get onto the ramp for I-70. After a few seconds he even got into the right lane for downtown. I like St. Louis, but had no desire to be in the left lane at that moment. Adid slowed down to get onto the spaghetti bowl that is the interstates that borders the downtown's east side. Okay Market St would be a straight shot to the City-County Building. We can see the building on OUR LEFT. Adid got into the right lane and by the time I corrected him the concrete median prevented us from making the left turn. We wondered through the one-way mess of streets that is Holy Cross-Westminster. Hey Washington St is right over there. Wow Washington St would just shoot us back downtown. Adid is so lucky I wasn't armed. Well we're either heading downtown on Michigan or heading straight into Arsenal Tech High School, Adid has no choice but to go into the right direction. Ah Sweet Home Alabama, that will take us directly home (pass Alabama St). I contemplate the fact that I don't need a gun to kill Adid at this point. My bare hands will do the job as well. Finally heading south on Pennsylvania. Hey Adid we'll need to head east on Market so we better get into the left lanes now because of all this rush hour traffic. (Make a left turn on Ohio St I think). That's okay we can head south on Alabama...or maybe the next street two lights down (tries to turn south on a northbound street). *PONDER STOPPING THE CAB AND WALKING.*

What should have been a 15/20 minute ride took about an hour and ten minutes I think with the final ten or so wandering within 6 or 8 blocks of the City County Building. GET OUT OF CAB, wave temp commissioner badge to bypass metal detector, deliver ballots at 4:15 and clerk looks at me and asks, "These are from this morning? What took you guys so long?" He wants to send BTB&T right back out, but my partner is in the bathroom. I go looking for T and figure he must have flushed himself down the toilet as he is nowhere. A few teams go out with a few ballots that must get to the polls to be counted.

BTB&B is asked to watch someone translate military absentee ballots onto ballots our optical machines can read. One soldier votes for Kerry/Edwards, "all democrats in every other office" and then mentions something about elitist rulers need to be gone because Afghanistan blows. Using my lawyer skills I construe this as meaning Straight Democratic Ticket and we fill in the appropriate oval.

Next assignment was to put the ballots we just made into an official absentee envelope, put all the paperwork that came with the federal absentee ballot back into the original envelope, and then staple the two envelopes together. Tyrone is uncomfortable with this after I demonstrate how to do this twice. Tyrone wants to get a cup of coffee and "I'll be right by that door so yell if they want us." This is the last I see of Tyrone except as I'm walking out the front door of the building. It's about 5:40 now and the polls close at six unless you're already in line. A few military ballots that we made NEED to go back up the Lawrence and two of them were places I had already been to and I knew where Mud Creek Players were. A small, tired woman who just got back is paired with me to haul ass out there. The teenager is quickly sworn in and paired with his mom to go to another place.

I hold open the door for Aiesha and drop into the other side. The new driver knows what his right foot is for and floors it and gets onto the correct onramp! One last chance to get precious votes to count. One last chance to be a guardian of our democracy. FULL AFTERBURNER NOW! The cabbie knows the area we need to get to, but we try to figure out the best way. 6pm with I-69 and I-465 up by Hassleton..er Castleton is always a nightmare of traffic. We get off at 56th street and I longingly look towards where I live and just want to go home, but we head north on Shadeland, Fall Creek, Hague, 86th St and finally to the barn. No one is outside, but the door is open as I flash my cheesy badge. I am a commissioner and this ballot arrived at the clerks office before 6pm and must be counted! Hey it didn't get here before 6. Yeah, but I trump you on this. No signature on it so it doesn't count. It is a military ballot and they don't have signature. Fine I'll make it a provisional ballot and let downtown figure it out. Sounds good to me!

Once more into the cab toward Amy Beverland and the baptism church. We delivered the ballots. Machines were shut down, many envelopes were sealed, but hopefully they'll be counted as provisionals at least for now. Heading back downtown was not a problem. Aiesha and I signed the pay sheets and we left at 7pm. Thirteen hours there doing work, and up since 4:30. Tired, but couldn't sleep and just wanted dinner.

While we are pretty much disgusted with national and state political campaigns, I am heartened that so many came out to vote and have a say about our world. I am heartened to know that a small army or barely paid volunteers is willing to take time out of their lives to help run this ship of state. We didn't always know the rules, we approximated many things and figured that there is a spirit to the democracy if sometimes we weren't sure of an official rule. Most of us only had an hour or two of training, but we were there for something greater. People will bitch and moan about who won and who lost (and watching the blogs now this morning, the 3rd, is proving interesting), but I hope those of you celebrating or bemoaning remember this: it is our system and we work within it. We have a chance to do it all over again in two to four years. We may hate the candidates, but the army of workers I saw on Election Day proves to me that aspects of the system are the way it should be. Democracy on Tuesday were in the hands of the voters, an unemployed apethetic person, a tired young working mother, two cab drivers (one brilliant and the other clueless), and the manic-depressive law student. Somehow I like this insanity. Perhaps it is the way it should be.