Being an Election Worker in Maryland

I have been MIA on Substack and Wardrobe Oxygen the past two weeks because I have been working as an election judge for early voting in Maryland. The primaries are taking place this month with Election Day June 23rd, but throughout the state we offered early in-person voting from June 11-18 from 7am - 8pm.

I signed up to be an election judge after heading to the polls in 2016 and realizing that every single person working at my polling place was old enough to receive Medicare. Nothing wrong with that; working a an election judge in Maryland means you get paid and when you’re retired you have the schedule required for such a position. But as we all get older, who is there to replace these dedicated citizens? Being self-employed, I can make my own schedule. I decided to sign up to be an election judge. I found the process very easy, and have worked every election (minus the one during COVID) since.

I was signed up to be a provisional judge. This means if you go to vote and maybe you recently moved, or you were issued an absentee ballot but didn’t turn it in, or you aren’t at your assigned polling place you can still vote but your ballot needs to be hand checked to ensure it is valid. I also am trained to perform same-day voter registrations. I was assigned a polling place at an elementary school in my town and have worked there ever since for every county, state, and federal election, usually with the same team of judges.

A couple of years ago, I received a letter that I was being assigned to early voting. I don’t know why I was picked, but again, having a flexible schedule, I agreed to it. It was for an entire week instead of one day, and meeting at a community center in a neighboring city since early voting has fewer polling places. I knew a couple of folks who were neighbors, but the group was primarily strangers. And those strangers seemed to have worked together for a long while and many of them were friends outside of working elections or attended the same church.

Instead of being cliquey, they were incredibly welcoming and inclusive. Working a consistent week of 12-hours days with the same 30-50 folks is a friendship intensive. I compare it to summer camp, but without the crafts and fun activities. I have now done early voting with this crew for several years and while the experience is hard on the body (standing or sitting for hours on a gymnasium floor not leaving the building and getting very little sleep) and the job (no use of tech in the polling place, no breaks long enough to get any work done), I really enjoy it and have no plans to stop doing it.

I am one of the youngest on the team, and I really enjoy having the time between voters to get to know the other election judges. I had never heard of Chicago-style Steppin’ but two of the judges taught me about it; they travel the world performing in Steppin’ competitions. One is in her late 80s and attended the “Fame” high school in NYC. Her mom heard they wanted diversity and encouraged her to audition. She had never acted before, was told to perform a monologue. She went to the library to look up what a monologue was, found one, performed it, and got in and received a world-class education and an escape from what she said was a negative neighborhood environment.

One was a First Sergeant in the Marines and earned a Bronze Star. Another was in the Army and remembers the day they integrated the military. One was model for Ebony’s Fashion Fair. One who was a traveling salesperson for Xerox and one who checked meters for the local water company shared how they had guns pulled on them just due to being Black. A literal rocket scientist, retired from NASA shared how he too had a gun pulled on him multiple times, twice by police when doing nothing but existing while Black.

We start and end each day holding hands in a circle as one man who is a pastor does a prayer. I am not religious, but I love this tradition. The prayer may be said to one God, but the words spoken are inclusive and folks who are Muslim, Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, atheist, and more join in because this is a time of connecting, sharing energy, and giving thanks for one another and a country that for now still provides fair, safe, and accessible elections.

One election, I wasn’t asked to be an early voting judge. I went to that same location to vote and the Chief Judge asked why I wasn’t there. I shared I wasn’t asked and she said she’d take care of that. Ever since, I have been asked to participate and not every other day, but all 7-8 days. While I still work as a provisional and same day registration judge, I am often asked to be a greeter or escort, guiding voters from the door to check-in, to ballot table, to voting booth. Between voters, you can often find me walking laps around the gym or doing air squats behind a table to keep the blood pumping and the day moving.

It is a form of reset for me, this week as an early voting election judge. While I did share my daily outfits on Threads along with some information about early voting in our state, I otherwise was off social media, hardly had time to look at my inbox, and could do no content creation. While I work from home with my husband and now summer has my kid home, I still find the job of a solopreneur a bit lonely. A week with 35-50 coworkers and constant new voters has me engaging in person with others, rebuilding a muscle that has atrophied since the pandemic.

And the experience brings me back to my retail days. I began working retail senior year of high school at the local florist. In college, I worked holiday season at Garden Botanika, and then got a job at a shop just off campus that sold fraternity and sorority merchandise. I loved that job, the getting to know the different Greek organizations on both my campus and at other local colleges. Keeping up with trends, performing trunk shows for colleges in nearby states, training employes, and working my way up to store manager. When the owner passed and his wife took over with a drastically different concept for the business, I moved on to working at Express, where I stayed for five years, leaving as a district visual merchandiser. I then worked for The Body Shop as a trainer for the region.

Even when working up the retail ladder, I preferred the time on the sales floor with customers. The constant movement doing figure-eights around the store, the conversation with customers and with coworkers, the high off helping someone find the thing they wanted and the thing they didn’t know they needed. Having them leave with such a positive experience, they wanted to return. Just writing that makes me realize I have incorporated that aspect into my blogging. But being an election judge, it’s doing it in person. And instead of selling sweaters or skincare, I am ensuring they have a world-class experience exercising their right to vote and being a part of democracy. And I am on a team that also desires to offer the same positive experience.

Tonight I head to the elementary school to set up for tomorrow, which is the official Election Day in Maryland. A different team, but still a wonderful experience. If you have a flexible schedule, even if you are able to use PTO once in a while for Primaries and Special Elections and can get off early the night before for setup, consider becoming a poll worker or election judge. The experience varies from state to state, but the purpose is the same: we are all working to ensure elections are fair, professional, accessible, and a positive experience for all.

The United States Election Assistance Commission, an independent agency of the United States government created by the Help America Vote Act of 2002, has a tool on its website to find out how to become a poll worker in your state. As for my local yokels:

• The State of Maryland is looking for election judges; you can train to work the November General Election. Apply at this link on the Maryland.gov website.

• If you are a resident of Prince George’s County, you can apply at this link. If you have a teen 16+ in your home, they too can be an election judge (their day will be shorter but still valuable). Training is four hours long at the BOE in Largo, you usually are assigned a location within a few miles of your home. If you do not have a vehicle, you can submit a request to the Board of Elections and they may reassign you; I have found the Board very responsive and helpful.

• For those who reside in Washington, D.C. you can learn more about being an election worker and apply at this link at the DCBOE site.

• For Virginia, this link to the Virginia Department of Elections shares how to become a poll worker.

And if you have an election tomorrow or coming up in your area, this link from Vote.org will help you find your local polling place. Do not accept the propaganda that elections are rigged and your vote doesn’t matter. One vote may just be a drop, but together we are an ocean that can make a wave of change.