Election Day Madness: What It’s Like In The Field

With only two issues left until Primary Day on September 13, I decided to save predictions until the last minute — just in case any candidate really steps in it this week.
Today, I’d like to give everyone out there who has never worked on a campaign a taste of what it’s like behind the scenes.
I can only speak to my two experiences — one running an election day operation and one being in charge of “the van” (I’ll explain later) — but I think I can give people a sense of what it’s like for those poor souls standing outside the poll site shoving flyers in your hands as you go to cast your vote.
It’s frantic, it can be fun and it’s always a disorganized mess, no matter how hard you try.
But the end result can make it all worth it.
Hundreds of thousands of voters turn out in New York City for a mayoral primary. Ideally, you want your candidate to be the last name/face voters see before they turn the lever.
You’d be shocked to know how many people head to the polls not having any idea who they are going to vote for in a specific race.
For example, this year’s mayoral race is going to pull people out to vote who will be supporting one particular person and wind up facing a ballot filled with City Council candidates. Whom to choose?
If your flyer is shiny and has pretty pictures and you hand it to a voter on their way in, that might just be enough to win you a vote.
It’s sad and it’s scary but it’s true — and it’s the reason you will be bombarded with literature as you head to the subway at 7:15 a.m. by caffeine-fueled political junkies or indifferent college students just looking to earn $10 an hour for the day.
These workers are the lifeblood of an election day operation. They can be spread out across a Council district, as was the case in my campaigns, or, even worse, across the city.
Their day starts at five a.m. picking up materials and then going to whatever godforsaken poll site they have been slated for. If they forget to pack a folding chair, they stand for the next 10 hours as competing workers barrel them over trying to jockey for position closest to the door without going past the “NO ELECTIONEERING” banners. This is not to mention the rejection factor, as voters hurry past them to avoid being inundated with flyers.
Now imagine having to feed a hot breakfast to 100 of those people spread out over about eight square miles. That’s where the van comes in.
It was my job in 2003 to drive the van around to about 35 poll sites to deliver food and supplies (A-frame signs, posters, literature) that workers might need. It’s a job that starts at four a.m. and doesn’t stop until the last poster is cleaned up after the polls are closed.
If you ask me, it’s the greatest job a person can have on election day, but also the craziest.
Picture the poor worker at the last poll site visited for breakfast at 10:30 a.m. getting a soggy bagel and lukewarm coffee. You have to make sure they are first on the list for pizza at lunch or you may return at 3 p.m. to find a stack of flyers and an abandoned A-frame — a campaign manager’s worst nightmare, the unmanned site.
And back at headquarters that manager can count on one thing — grief, demands and micro-management from everyone from the van driver to every single poll worker with a cell phone to the candidate him or herself (Do we have Sweet & Low and Equal available for our workers? ARRGH!)
It’s thankless (until at least 9:30 p.m. under the best circumstances) and it’s almost impossible to get right. You will always have one site where the machines go down, one site where a worker gets yelled at by poll inspectors and there’s nothing you can do but react. Plan all you want — something will go wrong anyway, probably where you least expected it.
Then, at nine p.m. the polls close and you think it’s time to party. But no, you have to organize those 100 people to get inside the poll site and call you back with the results.
The phones will ring off the hook and it will be one person’s job to open an Excel spreadsheet and input all the numbers and add them up, hoping and praying theirs come out on top.
That hour can seem like an eternity, but it’s what election day is all about.
Then, win or lose, it’s party time. And you can cry if you want to.
politics@queenscourier.com