Dogs With Jobs As Poll Watchers

My mom hasn't let me blog lately because my family had a very important job. Our garage was a precinct polling place in California's Presidential Primary Election on Tuesday, February 5. Plus, we were all precinct workers. My mom told us our job was to guard the precinct but we had to be nice to the voters, too.

Last weekend, my dad had to clean the garage. Then, we set up the voting booths, touch screen machine, and all the ballots and supplies. On Monday night after work, my mom got the coffee ready and baked cookies. Some people come to vote in person just for her homemade cookies!

On Tuesday morning, we got up at 5:00 a.m. We had to get the polls ready to open at 7:00 a.m. From the moment the garage door opened in the morning until the polls closed at 8:00 p.m., more than 200 voters came to our house. During lulls in the voting, my mom and I inspected the voting booths to make sure they were clean and safe.

After closing the polls, my mom and dad had to do a lot of paperwork to account for every ballot. Then, we had to seal the voted ballots in a special box and deliver everything to an elections drop-off location. We didn't sit down to dinner until 9:30 p.m.

My mom said it was a really long day and she's getting too old to work that hard. But, we had a great time! Our family was home on a day when they would normally be at work. Election day means corned beef for dinner. We got to greet our neighbors and their dogs, when they brought them. And, we got to bark at the mailman from the front yard instead of from behind a fence! A good day, all in all!