Mid-term elections at one polling place in Kent County (Grand Rapids, MI)

 

The morning's first voters at 7 a.m. - application to vote, ID check, ballot, voting, casting ballot, "I voted" sticker offered before they exit.

On the first Tuesday of November in 2026 almost 900 neighborhood residents arrived at one of the north precincts among the 59 sites throughout the city between the opening at 7 a.m. (about 25 stood in line before the start) and closing at 8 p.m. Although the full complement of chairperson plus 7 Election Inspectors were scheduled, one person could not attend and so the high volume and unceasing stream of people during the 13-hour period meant little chance to take a break after setting up the school gymnasium at 6 a.m. and clearing everything away after 8 p.m. During the day a number of unusual things happened, all of which were resolved by phone calls for advice, instruction, or authorization from the Election Headquarters of the county clerk's office.

Some voters had recently moved into the precinct but had not updated their voting status/address with the state database at the Secretary of State's offices. So they had to go 3 miles downtown for updating or in some cases initial registration and on-site/same day voting. Others were listed in the laptop pollbook but carried no ID with them. So they signed the reverse side of the "application to vote" that everyone completes before the ID check: affidavit to attest to their application identity being true. In the event that a voter's marks strayed outside the optical scanner parameters, or more than one selection was voted (or in excess of the stated number to vote for), then the ballot was rejected or marked 'spoiled' and a fresh one was issued (about 24 instances of people 'over-voting'). In some cases, the person could use the tabulator's touchscreen to opt for "cast my ballot anyway," thus allowing correct voting sections to be tabulated and over-vote or 'ambiguous marks detected' to be by-passed (not counted). A spectacular paper jam at the tabulator/optical scanner produced a torn and accordion-shaped ballot page; normally, the misfeed or misaligned ballot is simply pushed out so the voter can try to cast the piece of paper all over again. The weirdest event, repeated in multiple precincts, had to do with excessive numbers of write-in candidates. 

There is a list of write-in candidates who have communicated with the County Clerk so that their names will be counted if voters put that name on the line provided on the ballot page. But first the voter must darken the oval: name with no marked oval does not count, marked oval with no name also does not count. Some ballots ended up this way. Other voters put unapproved names - either real people known to the voter, or fantasy names (deceased notables or fictional heroes). No matter the particulars, the volume of write-ins soon overwhelmed the tabulator compartment dedicated to ballots that include write-ins so these can be screened with human eyes. Once the bin was filled, the tabulator screen error said 'paper jam' and ceased to accept more casting of ballots. The fix by a mobile trouble-shooting team was to reset and to instruct the chairperson to open the machine to remove write-ins hourly, instead of once at the end of the day. During the tabulator down time, voters had to be guided in depositing their ballots in the locked Auxiliary Bin. At the end of the day these would be fed into the machine by the chairperson and witnessed by fellow Election Inspector (legal name of pollworker) of the opposite political party to be tabulated. In addition to the above added complications, at one of the city center precincts at least there were Department of Justice representatives observing for 30 minutes by occupying the polling place's designated spot for election observers.

Overall, the long workday passed quickly and without much pause in the pace and volume of voters. Usually, the midterm election is a low-key event with modest or low turnout. But for a variety of reasons, factors, trends, and personal circumstances in the present moment, the scale of voting was similar to the Presidential election of November 2024. Radio stories on the day after the midterm election described a resounding majority of voters choosing the party loyally opposing Trumpism and the trail of destruction wrought in less than 24 months from the date of assuming the Office of the U.S. President after taking the Inauguration Day oath of office to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution and then promptly to go about dismantling, eroding, and abusing that foundational set of rights and responsibilities, together with its several amendments. 

Once the new Democratic elected officials are seated in two months, on January 3, 2027, the clean-up work begins: filling in the holes dug by the unlawful Executive Orders and overreach in states and in Congressional prerogatives, but also in seeking accountability for the long list of fellow criminals to the convicted felon, DJ Trump. Then all the damage to the social and financial and psychological fabric of society must be built again: destroying things is easy, growing things is hard. What can never be remedied is the third layer of expensive harm caused by the POTUS living weapon of mass dereliction: the opportunity cost, those things which could have been researched, developed, and applied to the actual problems local and global with health, habitat, climate, education, and so on.

If the corner has not been now turned on the trail of waste, fraud, self-enrichment, and idiocy and self-destruction, then at least it is closer than at any time in the past 22 months. The work of imagination, good will, and sweat and tears can now begin, not only thanks to precinct workers and county officials who administer the voting process in all 50 states and territories, but also thanks to young and old from each precinct neighborhood who showed up to exercise their right to vote. After that it is up to the election winners to lead the way ahead; not all alone but with constant support and correction, if need be, by constituents.