As my friend Beth reminded me recently, democracy is a team sport. Giving money is easy. Canvassing, while vital, is hard work for old bones. In between is the sweet spot, from high school to septuagenarian. I am speaking here of poll watching (volunteers) and poll workers ($20 an hour or so). 

V and I did a four-hour shift of poll watching. It’s easy and, with luck, peaceful. There is a web site and a phone number (in our case, California Democrats) which you use to report irregularities, so they dispatch a crack squad of lawyers. National Guard or ICE would have been an irregularity, but that didn’t happen. Not long lines, not a ballot shortage, not denial of same-day registration.

In fact a ballot shortage in California is hard to accomplish, since ballots are printed on demand at the polling station. The paper is watermarked to prevent illegal ballot printing.

Poll workers work hard (7am-8pm with a two-hour lunch break), and always have something to do, regardless of the flow of voters. But they are the grease that makes the machine work. Most voters thank them; I know I did, and I was only watching (I had voted by mail). There are sometimes poll worker shortages, so remember to sign up in the fall of 2028. That may be an important election.