Poll workers still busy with all-mail voting

With this year’s end to poll voting in Pierce County, Carol Goldstein didn’t want to quit helping people cast their ballots. So she found a new job running one of six new voting centers.

“I like the people part,” Goldstein said. “I love the process. Everything has to add up at the end of the night.”

Tuesday marks the first vote-by-mail general election in Pierce County. The Legislature decided in March to end poll voting in Washington, and Pierce was the last holdout among the state’s 39 counties.

It’s a change for poll workers as well as voters.

Goldstein, 52, worked the polls for four years in Tacoma and Sumner. She now drives 45 minutes from her home in Orting to manage the voting center at Gig Harbor Civic Center, where workers assist people with disabilities, anyone wanting to vote with a touch-screen machine or anyone else needing help.

Goldstein earns $14 an hour as a site manager, working from 6 a.m. to at least 8:30 p.m. Monday and today.

She said she’s not sad traditional polling places are gone.

“There was a lot of them, and some of the elections were really slow,” she said.

Things were slow Monday morning as the Gig Harbor voting center opened for the first of two days. About a half-dozen people voted, and a dozen or so dropped off their ballots in the first four hours.

Clifta Wise of Gig Harbor was glad to have the center nearby. She had changed her post office box and didn’t receive a ballot. Election workers verified Monday that she hadn’t already cast her ballot, then gave her a card to pull up her ballot on the touch-screen machine.

“I couldn’t have voted otherwise,” said Wise, 82. “And I think every vote counts.”

Voters on Tuesday are deciding about a range of state and local measures, as well as city council, school board and commissioner positions for fire, parks and water and sewer districts.

They can cast ballots from 7 a.m.-8 p.m. at one of the six voting centers, which were first used in the August primary election. Voters can also save a stamp and drop off their ballots at 26 drop boxes. Mailed ballots must be postmarked today.

Pierce County Auditor Julie Anderson describes the centers as satellite offices of the main elections center in Tacoma. They offer a range of customer service including provisional ballots, help using the touch-screen machines and a ballot deposit site.

Anderson pushed for all-mail voting as a way to shave costs and increase efficiencies.The county paid 294 poll workers in the 2010 general election for 58 polling locations; the total cost was about $87,000, Anderson said. She said 160 people are working at the voting centers this week, most in eight-hour shifts. The total cost of operating the centers for two days is $27,662.

With less call for their services, some poll workers decided to retire.

Jim Taylor stopped helping at the polls after 13 years. He continues working as an unpaid election observer, appointed by the Pierce County Republican Party.

Taylor, 72, is assigned shifts to observe ballot processing at the elections center in Tacoma.

The Steilacoom man said voting by mail is a necessity because some people can’t get to the polls. But he regrets the demise of the old ways.

“Having a poll in your community is a part of America,” Taylor said. “We don’t do that anymore. I miss it.” In this election, the auditor’s office is predicting a 50 percent turnout of the county’s 415,800 registered voters. Secretary of State Sam Reed is forecasting a 47 percent turnout statewide.

If those numbers hold true, it would mark the first time in recent years that Pierce County’s voter turnout – typically the worst among Washington counties – exceeds the statewide average, said Mary Johnson-Hall, elections supervisor.

Steve Maynard: 253-597-8647
steve.maynard@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/polibuzz