At 7:30 a.m., with California polls already open for half an hour and Super Tuesday voting fully under way across the country, voters slowly trickled into their polling location on Strathmore Avenue.
With a little instruction from the friendly poll workers, they took their ballots and cast their votes to help determine, among other things, who could be the next president of the United States.
For most of them, performing their civic duty took less than 10 minutes.
For Jehan Laner, a first-year political science student, however, performing her civic duty would be much more involved. For her, voting in the election was not enough.
She had decided to forgo her Tuesday activities, put off studying for her Wednesday midterm and serve as a poll worker.
Having stayed up until 4 a.m. studying for her midterm, however, Laner almost missed her early morning start at her polling location by getting a little extra sleep.
But minutes after the polls opened, she was at her post and, as tired as she was, ready to serve.
Her duties throughout the day would range from monitoring and closing her polling location, to providing instruction about how to mark ballots, to trouble-shooting voter problems.
Becoming a poll worker
“Could you fold (the ballot) in half please … so I don’t see your answers?” Laner jokingly said to a voter.
By 2:30 p.m., with the day half over, hunger and fatigue were beginning to set in for Laner. Taking bites of baby carrots and joking with her coworkers between helping voters, she spoke about how she came to be a poll worker.
“I saw an official county worker on Bruin Walk signing people up, and I thought it would be a cool thing to do,” Laner said.
After agreeing to work the polls, she attended a two-hour elections training session, at which she was taught everything from how to work ballot scanners to providing people with provisional ballots.
That training served Laner well throughout the day as she helped frustrated voters who had made errors in their registration process.
“To be an independent voter means you are not affiliated (with any party), but there is also an American Independent Party, so a lot of people registered for it thinking it meant “˜unaffiliated.'”
But, for the most part, Laner said, she and her fellow poll workers were able to send voters home happy with their experience.
All about civic duty
At 7:30 p.m., with her poll-working experience almost over, Laner too was happy with her experience. For her efforts, she would be paid nearly $100, but as she mentioned several times, that was not a reason why she decided to serve.
“The money wasn’t a big factor in why I did this,” Laner said. “It was kind of just an added bonus.”
For her, it was about performing her civic duty and seeing elections from the other side.
“(Poll working) really gives you a chance to get to know the process, especially since this is the first primary I can vote in,” Laner said.
But, she said, “I almost know more than I ever wanted to know (about elections).”
Life after poll working
Promptly at 8 p.m., the poll closed, and Laner and her fellow poll workers jumped to action to clean up their location and count the ballots.
Soon after, having finished performing their required duties, Laner and her fellow poll workers would go their separate ways.
For most of them, the night was over. But for Laner, one task still loomed.
“I am going home and studying for my midterm at 8 a.m. tomorrow,” Laner said with a tired look.