The Day I Served as an Election Poll Watcher

One of the Happiest Days of my Life

This morning on my Facebook feed, I saw a call to action seeking poll workers and poll watchers for the election in Ohio.  It reminded me of one of the happiest days of my life.  On that day, I served as a Democratic Party poll watcher in St. Louis County, Missouri. 

Background

On October 16, 2000, I woke to the NPR radio station in St. Louis announcing the death of then-Governor Mel Carnahan, a Democratic candidate for one of Missouri's U.S. Senate seats.  Overnight, Mel, his son, Randy, and his campaign manager had died in a plane crash as he left a campaign event south of St. Louis.  Standing in bare feet on the cold wood floor, I started crying, my shoulders slumped in complete defeat.  My boyfriend offered little emotional support or understanding. I slammed the door as I left his house and never returned.  Had he completely misunderstood (or worse, devalued) the countless hours I had devoted to getting Democrats elected in Missouri that election cycle? 

The race had national significance because it could determine whether the Democrats would control the Senate.  The Senate election, in turn, would control appointments to the US Supreme Court.  That year, we were also voting in the presidential race between Bush and Gore -- a race resolved by the U.S Supreme Court as the "hanging chad" recount unfolded in Florida. 

Mel Carnahan had championed women's rights in a back-assward red state that is dominated by Catholic moralism on abortion.  He was beloved in the African-American community, especially when juxtaposed against John Ashcroft, who was in the tight Senate race with him. 

In an October 16, 1999 satirical op-ed in a local alternative newspaper called The Riverfront Times, the editor identified one of Ashcroft's actions that energized Black voters a year later:

This time, our color-blind senator has been victimized by the misleading appearance that his holy crusade against Missouri Supreme Court Judge Ronnie White was -- let us say it gently -- racially challenged. Thanks to Ashcroft and sidekick Sen. Kit Bond, White was rejected last week for a federal judgeship, the first such vote by the full U.S. Senate since Robert Bork was cast aside 12 years ago.

It turns out that White happens to be an African-American, the first (and only one) to serve on the state Supreme Court, so poor Ashcroft gets accused of being -- let us say it gently -- not so good racially, when all he was trying to do was assassinate White's character without regard to race, creed or religion.

Sure, Ashcroft maliciously distorted White's judicial record, maligning him as "pro-criminal" because of some instances when White voted to overturn a death sentence. Sure, Ashcroft overlooked the 41 times when White voted to uphold a death sentence and the six of those times he actually wrote the court's opinion.

And, yes, four of Ashcroft's own appointees have voted to overturn more death sentences than White. And, yes, the senator knows as an attorney that these are technical issues, not referenda on the death penalty, and that the whole debate is meaningless.

The op-ed goes on to list Ashcroft's other racist credentials, evidenced by actions, interviews, and other statements.  Among other things, he opposed the voluntary school desegregation plan for St. Louis.  

He also worked hard to prevent voter registration in parts of the community with large African-American populations:

Mr. Ashcroft twice vetoed a bill during his tenure as governor that would have allowed officials from the League of Women Voters to register voters in St. Louis, a heavily black and Democratic city. The bills, passed in 1988 and 1989, would have permitted the city to use the same registration procedures already in place in the the surrounding St. Louis County which was largely Republican and white.

John Hickey, the director of the Citizens Education Fund, a civil rights group in Missouri, said Mr. Ashcroft's veto was ''clearly aimed at keeping down minority and largely Democratic voter registration in St. Louis.'' In his veto message, Governor Ashcroft cited the possibility of voter fraud.

So, many of us were looking for a candidate who supported human rights.  

My Political Activism that Election Cycle

I had joined a group of professional women working on behalf of pro-choice Democratic candidates.  Harriett Woods led the group.  She was an astonishing leader who had become the first woman in Missouri to hold statewide elective office.  She served as Lieutenant Governor from 1984 to 1989.  At the time, Ashcroft served as Governor.  

Our coalition offered campaign financing support and organizational services for various campaigns.  Ann Richards, former Texas Governor, came to an event we sponsored and told us to contribute to a candidate an amount equal to the value of the clothes, accessories, and jewelry we were wearing at the time.  That request provided a powerful reminder of how women could translate money into power. 

I had worked in Carnahan's campaign office before the plane crash and joined an utterly fantastical effort after the crash.  Because he had died so close to the election, no time existed to change the ballots to include another candidate.  Thus, the Democratic party had decided to encourage people to cast a vote for the dead man listed on the ballot.  After he won, the new Governor (who we hoped would be Democrat Bob Holden) would appoint Carnahan's replacement (who we hoped would be Carnahan's wife, Jean) until the next regular election. 

We spent hours stuffing envelopes with the strategy papers and a campaign button reading "I'm still with Mel."  I still have the button in my election button collection that goes back to my first election, in 1972, in which I voted against Nixon and for McGovern.  I remember taking a photograph of the long, plastic envelope bins, one after another lined up on the work tables in the campaign office.  We then took the envelopes to the USPS for mailing, placing them respectfully in the back of a volunteer's station wagon.  We were all still mourning, but optimistic.

Serving as a Poll Watcher: One of the Happiest Days of my Life

Next, someone asked me to serve as a poll watcher for the Democrats.  As a lawyer, I would argue voter challenges to the Circuit Court Judge assigned to the main Board of Elections for St. Louis County.  If a voter was not allowed to vote at is or her assigned polling station, the voter could come to the election board office to try to get the challenge sorted out.  I, of course, recall winning most of those challenges, but perhaps I didn't.  

This experience provided my first introduction to GOP efforts to suppress voting.  Most of the voters who came with challenges were African-American. I loved the determination shown by making the extra trip to the Board of Elections.  Little did I know, I would see it on a grander scale later that day.

When I arrived at the office, the Commissioner -- appointed by Governor Carnahan and thus a Democrat -- handed me a pocket-sized collection of Missouri election laws.  I read it carefully, highlighting sections I thought I'd need later.  She gave me a quick tour of the office that she supervised. In one large room, election officials counted ballots with automated counters.  They stood facing observers in an adjacent room that had a big observation window and comfortable seating of arm chairs and couches.  I remember how cold it was in those rooms.  I asked about it.  The counting machines needed frigid air to do their job properly during that day.

She also showed me her office, which I would inhabit later after the polls closed, as we watched the last ballot boxes come in for the count with their two escorts, one from each political party.  Those boxes came from the northern counties of St. Louis County, residential neighborhoods reflecting old patterns of housing segregation. Those ballot boxes came in after midnight because Black voters who were in line when the polls closed at 7 p.m. could still cast their votes no matter how slowly the line moved towards the voting booths. 

They had swelled the number of voters typically expected in the presidential election year.  And, they had turned the election for Carnahan in a county that typically served up election results for GOP candidates.  We owed the win to those voters.  Full stop.

I remember standing in the observation room, as the Commissioner and her staff counted the last ballot boxes.  She gave me a discrete thumbs up as should stood at the machine closest to the window. She had a very big smile on her face.  So did I.

Writing that story now brings tears to my eyes in the same way that photos of the long lines of Black voters in South Africa during the first fully democratic elections in 1994 brings tears to my eyes.

The Unhappy Ending to my Happy Day

Yes, Carnahan won the Senate race.  Yes, his wife served in his stead.  But, G.W. Bush eventually won a tight race with Al Gore after an unprecedented intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court in deciding the outcome of a presidential race.   Later, in a face-saving act, Bush installed Ashcroft as U.S. Attorney General.  

The Senate races resulted in a 50-50 tie between Democrats and Republicans.  The official history of the U.S. Senate states:

The story of the extraordinary 107th began on election day in November 2000, when—for the first time in history—voters knowingly elected a deceased candidate, Mel Carnahan of Missouri, to a Senate seat. Also on November 7, New York voters chose the First Lady of the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as that state’s first woman senator. With the appointment of Carnahan’s widow, Jean, to his vacant seat, the number of incumbent women senators rose to a record-breaking 13.

The 2000 election also produced for the first time a Senate with 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats. This placed the Senate under Democratic control for the initial 17 days of the new Congress, with outgoing Vice President Al Gore providing the tie-breaking vote on organizational matters. On January 20, the majority shifted to the Republicans with the swearing-in of Vice President Dick Cheney.

G.W. Bush appointed John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court, thus putting in jeopardy women's reproductive rights and minority voting rights, and infusing corporate money into election politics through its decisions. 

Elections Matter

The decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973, giving women a constitutionally protected right to abortion, no doubt played a role in my own political activism.  A year earlier, I had read Germaine Greer's, The Female Eunuch and Betty Friedan's, The Feminine Mystique.  They lit a fire in my brain, heart, and belly.  I turned that fire into a law degree.  I turned my legal salary into power at the polls. I joined progressive policy-makers who fought for human rights. I owe that 2000 election cycle for turning a more passive (but highly consistent) voter into a political activist. 

So, if you are not a lawyer but can work at the polls replacing a high-risk senior who might normally play that role, consider it.  If you are a lawyer, volunteer to serve as a poll watcher.  Your local board of elections should have information about these civic roles. 

So very much is at stake.  Let's do our best to protect our democracy in a pandemic.