Election Judge Experience

My neck is stiff; my mouth is dry from talking; and I’ve never sat in the same chair for so long. But I’m having a good time. It’s November 4, my first day to serve as an election judge.

After signing up for the job, my first surprise was the requirement of a four-hour training. Why would anyone need four hours of training to mark names off a list and point to a booth? I was soon to find out.

Turns out that helping with an election is not so simple. For one thing, the helpers set up and tear down the polling place—a complicated process involving laptops, wifi hot spot, privacy booths, signs, Voter Assistance Terminal, ballot box/tabulator, ballots, affidavits, and on and on. Secondly, they have to know what to do with all these things on Election Day. It’s quite a process, well managed by Rose Redmon and Matthew Grandone.

With the number of details to be covered there was a high potential of the training being a bore. It was not. The young man who taught, Matt, was articulate and animated. The morning passed easily as he led with demonstrations and instructions, all recorded for us in a manual of over sixty pages. The reply to one participant’s question was something like, “you’re judges. Use your good judgment.” This was when I realized the responsibility of the position.

The five judges of Precinct 37 met each other when we arrived for set up at 9:00 Monday night. We worked together through the carefully detailed instructions, one of us reading each step aloud, the others enacting. “Use the black key from the clear pouch in the second section of the red binder to unlock flap #2 of the ballot box and place in the DOWN position.” Right! (Or something like that.) We set up computers, machines, and booths. Fortunately one of us was computer savvy. After an hour we came to the page in the instruction manual which says: STOP. Everything else was to be done election day.

After a short night’s sleep, we arrived in the rain at 5 the next morning. First on the agenda was taking the judges of election oath. We then verified that we were in the right place with the correct ballots for that precinct. We finished setting up and at exactly 6:00 unlocked the front doors.

Except for an occasional ten-minute break, a steady stream of people flowed past our tables from 6 a.m. until 7 p.m. Sometimes they had to wait in line. Our team of five worked together well and enjoyed the camaraderie. After the first morning rush, my opposite-party partner and I hit our stride: find name in the data base; check the two signatures; give brief instruction while handing out the correct ballot. Over 80% of the time it was simple.

Slowdowns came when someone wasn’t in the system or had moved or changed a name. In such cases the voter might need to fill out an affidavit, or we might need to call the Election Judge Hotline. At that point most people could vote provisionally or go to the Brookens Center to correct his or her information and vote there.

How NOT to Visit the Family of a Newborn

~Drop in unannounced the first week or so after the birth.
~Stay at least an hour or two to show you really care.
~Ignore the fact that the kids of the house seem to be getting restless for dinner or for some down time, even bedtime, or for some of their parents’ attention and care. Clearly your visit is more important.
~Make it clear that you came to see the baby and the baby you must see, even if the weary parent has just spent thirty minutes or more getting the little one off to sleep in the crib.
~Of course you’ll want to hold the baby too.
~Bring your kids along on the visit. Maybe one of them wants to hold the baby?
~Maybe a friend of yours would like to come. It doesn’t matter if that friend knows the family or not.
~Come thirsty or hungry.
~Come empty handed. Or bring something for a baby gift that you enjoy buying because it’s cute, or something you already have on hand. Don’t bother to ask what would actually be helpful.
~It’s cool to show the new parents they are needed by asking for some favor from one of them, maybe your laptop looked at or a phone number looked up or some other favor or business taken care of.
~Be sure to point out to the parents anything they are doing with the baby that you think could be improved on.

How TO Visit the Family of a Newborn

Don’t.

Well, ok, I’m sorry. You are actually most welcome to visit if you are good friends, stay only 15 minutes, do not have expectations of seeing the baby (or the mom, for that matter), and are dropping off some healthy, yummy food or a new crib sheet.

Revelation

Revelation, not as in "Wow! I had one!" but as in the last book of the Bible. Actually, after avoiding and dreading this book all of my life, I am now fascinated learning about it in the Vineyard Bible Institute. Perhaps more to come on this, but I've gotta get my VBI Revelation homework done first. :-]

New Testament Finish Line

Unless I've overlooked something, this wraps it up for mentions of food and eating in the New Testament. My original intent was to jump from Revelation back into Genesis and start through the OT, but now I think not. For one thing, I've signed up as a Vineyard Bible Institute student, so I will be doing more specific studies with that which require their own focus. For another, figuring out what to eat doesn't seem as important now as when I started, especially given some of the scriptures I've pondered here about priorities. See entries for March 13, June 27, and maybe some other days I can't find now.

Actually, what to eat has recently been well stated, in my opinion, by Michael Pollen's three bottom-line Food Rules which in no way conflict with the Bible.

Eat real food. (You know what that means.)
Mostly plants. (Which is not to say all plants.)
Less of it.

Now I have to decide what to do next, if anything, with this blog spot.

The Wine of God's Wrath

~Revelation 14:10

Then a third angel followed them, shouting, “Anyone who worships the beast and his statue or who accepts his mark on the forehead or on the hand must drink the wine of God’s anger. It has been poured full strength into God’s cup of wrath.

~Revelation 14:19

So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and loaded the grapes into the great winepress of God’s wrath.

~Revelation 16:19

So God remembered all of Babylon’s sins, and he made her drink the cup that was filled with the wine of his fierce wrath.

~Revelation 19:15

He will release the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty, like juice flowing from a winepress

Wine is a powerful image. The Bible uses it to give us a picture of the love of Christ in communion, a symbol of the blood he shed for our salvation. The Bible also uses it, as seen here, as a symbol of the wrath of God against evil and injustice.

~Revelation 18.3

For all the nations have fallen because of the wine of [Babylon's] passionate immorality. The kings of the world have committed adultery with her.

~Revelation 18.13

[Babylon, the great city] also bought cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle, sheep, horses, chariots, and bodies—that is, human slaves.

In Revelation, Babylon represents world systems which are against God. I think wine is used here to symbolize how intoxicating those systems can be.

Cinnamon, spice, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep are listed among the luxuries enjoyed by Babylon.

Nourished by God

~Revelation 12.6

and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which to be nourished for 1260 days.

~Revelation 12.14

But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.

Of course God's taking care of someone includes nourishment.