Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor

Monday, November 17, 2008

Poll workers did

a great job

To the Editor:

I wanted to take a quick moment to recognize the poll workers located at the Roy Clark Community Building in Linton for their fine work on Election Day.

The workers representing precincts two, four and seven did an excellent job trying to accommodate all of the voters regardless of their age, sex, handicap, voting experience, or other defining conditioning. In short, the staff at these three precincts did everything within their legal power to give qualified citizens the right to vote.

As a teacher of government and American history for 18 years, I had not had the chance to work inside a polling place on Election Day. One of the national campaigns extended an invitation to me to work in the polling place as poll watcher. A poll watcher basically gathers information about voter participation and helps voters get to their proper precinct to help make the voting process go more smoothly.

This invitation gave me some insight into the process that the average voter often misses as they cast their vote to get back to work, home, or other responsibility.

As many of you know, the turnout in the past election was tremendous, especially for those living in Greene County. Although the lines at times were long, the workers and their supervisors did a tremendous job making voters feel comfortable and limiting wait times by being as quick and efficient as possible. Our county clerk should be very pleased with the way that these three precincts carried out their duties to give each and every voter the opportunity to fulfill their constitutional right to elect their candidates for office.

Our staff of three was treated with the utmost respect by all of the poll workers and officials, and I hope that they found our help to be useful as well.

As you may have noticed, my letter does not include particular names of those carrying out these important duties. To be honest, I did not want to forget any person who might have contributed greatly to these efforts. So, in closing, just let me say thank you to all the poll workers at Precinct Two, Four, and Seven for making my Election Day so memorable.

Gene Hall

Eighth Grade American History Teacher

Linton-Stockton Junior High School