We watch... so you don't have to.
Where did all the oldsters go?
I've been voting for a while, and the one constant in all of the precincts in which I've voted has been the antique status of the poll workers. God bless the elderly of America for continuing to fulfill a civic duty to the community, but it is a little disconcerting to check in, wait for fifteen minutes while the poll worker tries to remember whether or not the Nineteenth Amendment was actually ratified, then get to the booth.
So I wandered into the polling place today, fully prepared for the usual routine: whip out the ID because nobody ever knows how to spell "Schmeiser" without it, wait the requisite period, debate the merits of holding a mirror under the immobile poll worker's nose to see if it fogs up, eventually gain admittance to a voter's booth.
However, there were actual people my age working the tables. I was in and out of the polls in ten minutes.
I have no idea whether or not my cohort's embraced the radical concept of community volunteerism, or if people wanted to work at the polls in the hopes of catching their ideological opposites commiting acts of electoral fraud. And I have no idea whether this effect will last beyond this election. The idealist in me would like to think so. However, I'm already preparing myself for the inevitability of spelling out my name to the stalwart aged pollworkers who will, I hope, still be there the next time around.
