The Polls are Closed

ELECTION DAY:  If you work for an elections department, Election Day is kind of like a wedding day. Weeks or months of planning and prepping lead up to one big event - the day the polls close.

Here in Washington state, we're all mail in. If you're registered in time, a ballot will be mailed to your place of residence. You can drop it in return mail (no postage required) or a drop box (there are hundreds throughout the state). 

However, some people lose their ballots, some people never receive their ballots (lost in the mail), and some people don't get registered in time to have a ballot mailed to them. For those and other reasons, voters have an option of visiting a voting center on a few days leading up to an election.

In King County, two vote centers were open Tuesday (election day) and the preceding Saturday and  Monday. 

For the first 2 days and the start of the final day, I had been working in the cool, cavernous confines of Century Link Field's Events Center. Much of the time I felt like the lonely Maytag repairman. Traffic was sloooooooow. On days 1 and 2, we were hoping that maybe it was just that everyone would show up on day 3, election day. But by noon that day, it was feeling like that wasn't going to be the case. It was still a ghost town.

Meanwhile, at the other vote center in Renton, things were hopping to the point where they called and asked for volunteers at Century Link to come down there. I thought it made sense for me to volunteer, since the Renton site is so close to home. And so off I went. 

Within 10 minutes of arriving, it seemed like I had made a pretty terrible decision, ha ha. 

The set up in Renton was geared almost entirely for drive up service. I was given a tablet and tasked with the job of runner. I would be working the (BIG) parking lot, 'running' over to cars that pulled in, visiting with the voter(s) inside. I had a tablet and had to look up if they were registered or not, I could make updates on the spot (names, addresses, contact info), and then 'run' over to the tent where four workers were on laptops, where they would print out  ballots and I would 'run' the ballots back over to the voter(s). Often, there was another run or two per car, to bring them a voter's pamphlet, answer a question, etc. I did not run. I didn't even jog, to be honest. But I promise you I did walk very briskly the entire time. 

It was 85 out. And it was full sun. And it was all asphalt. And I was dressed to be in chilly Century Link.

Oh, and I was wearing a face mask (three fabric layers covering my nose and mouth), and my glasses, because I had to be able to read the tablet. This also meant I couldn't wear sunglasses (I don't have prescription sunglasses). Also, I had to wear an awkward plastic face shield on a headband. All this while managing the tablet, often a clipboard, sticky notes, pens ... For 7 hours. 

Have I mentioned the air temp was 85? I'm guessing it was closer to 95 standing on the asphalt. I was literally a hot mess. 

When I got home, my skin head to toe was covered in salt crystals, and today I'm pretty creaky, I will admit. But overall, I'm oh-so-glad I went. 

I was able to help dozens and dozens of voters get their ballots, and they were all so appreciative for the process allowing to get their ballots on election day, safely, without even having to leave their cars.  I heard effusive praise and thanks. One sweet family even handed me a bottled water. I asked them if they would mind if I just poured it directly over my head. They laughed. At one point yesterday, I tried to drink water through my face mask. At another point, I tried to drink it through my face shield. Neither worked, BTW.

The polls closed at 8, and the rule was if you were in the parking lot by 8, you got to get your ballot in. So at about 10 to 8, organizers removed the traffic flow bottleneck(s) and allowed dozens of vehicles to stream into the parking lot. This photo is just a tiny slice of the overall picture. It was kind of a festival atmosphere at that point. Auto occupants were taking photos and video of the scene and despite the crush of vehicles and the gridlock, I didn't see any tempers flare. 

Overall, I was really happy to have had the chance to see both vote centers in operation. King County Elections had never done anything like this before (thanks pandemic), so it was cool to see their months of planning work out very well in the end (at least by my eye).

On Tuesday morning, while I was sitting at the rather lonely vote center in Century Link, I couldn't help but start wondering if Tuesdays were a difficult day for most people to go vote. Wouldn't a Saturday election day be better, for instance. 

Turns out there is an antiquated reason people vote on Tuesdays. I had CJ write a short report about it. 

Since the mid-19th century, elections in the USA have typically been held on Tuesdays. This largely has to do with the customs (and at least one custom that persists to the present day) of America at the time.

According to John M. Cunningham, a former writer for Encyclopædia Britannica, two days of the week were absolutely not options for voting days: Sunday and Wednesday. On Sunday, most Americans at the time went to church. so they couldn't vote that day. On Wednesday, several towns and cities held "market days," where agricultural workers would sell their crops to locals. Especially in pre-Model T America, travelling to a nearby town or church would often necessitate a "travel day," or a day where the primary focus is travelling from one place to another. As Cunningham put it, "If people couldn’t use Sunday or Wednesday as their travel day, then that meant election day couldn’t be on Monday or Thursday, either. And so Tuesday was perceived as the best option."

GETTING FIGGY WITH IT: While it's a terrible year for tomatoes and squash (at least based on our garden and posts I've seen on Seattle gardening groups), it seems like it's a bumper crop year for figs. 

Our neighbor has a big fig tree, and a lot of its branches hang out over into our yard.  In the three summers we've been here, we've basically just ignored the sticky fruit, not really knowing what to do with it. But since our own garden efforts were so un-bountiful, I figured this was the time to put the figs to some use. 

The first thing that came to mind was homemade Fig Newton cookies. I scoured the Internet for recipe ideas and finally found one that seemed workable to me (and with what we had on hand).  So, we picked 16 or so figs and got down to business.

The first step was boiling them for 45 minutes (peels and all) with 1 cup of water, a cinnamon stick, and 2 cups of sugar (yikes!).

Afterwards, that pot was drained and its contents cooled. 

While the figs were cooking, I made the dough. Just a basic butter, sugar, flour, baking powder situation. 

The recipe said to roll the dough out about 1/4 inch thick, and then cut that into strips that wound up being about 4 inches wide. Those were slathered with the fig jam, and then folded in half and pinched shut.

They came out a little crustier than I had hoped for, so I cut them into cookie-sized pieces while they were still warm.

They were pretty OK, if you like cookies and you like figs.