Welcome to the Madness: Memoirs of an Italian Poll Clerk Pt.1

Hello sweeties,

I have a different kind of post for you today. As you may know if you read my post-hiatus article (or my tweets), I got summoned to poll duty for the European/municipal election combo on May 26th - which, incidentally, didn't go well 😬. I guess you know by know that the right wing (a particularly aggressive brand these days) raised its ugly head, even in my hometown 😭. Regardless, I thought I'd write a post about my poll-clerk experiences, in the hope that you might find it interesting - if mildly (?). I, for one, am curious how poll duty works in the other countries - so, if any of you knows about it firsthand, feel free to let me know in the comments!

As of now, in my town there are 39 polling places, ranging from 460+ to 850+ registered voters. Every polling place has got the same number of poll clerks though: 4, plus 1 president and 1 secretary. The president and secretary get assigned to the same polling place every year, while us clerks never know where we're ending up. Originally, clerks were picked randomly, but for several years now there have been lists of volunteers among which to choose, and usually, you get picked if you know someone in the electoral committee (yeah, not the most ethical practice, I'll admit. But it's not like I had to sell my soul for it. And I'm not too proud to confess that I can use the extra money). I've been having this gig for a few years now, but this one may have been my last, because they're going to replace the committee members soon, as it always happens when the town council changes hands...

For a few years until 2013, elections/referendums were held over the span of two days: Sunday, 8 to 22; Monday, 7 to 15 (after which we started counting votes). Since then, it's been decided that it would be less taxing, financially, if they were held on one single day...because while we get paid the same amount of money (yep, you read it right), keeping the place open for two days - and assigning security to it - is of course more expensive. But in order to compensate for the lost half-day, since 2014 two more hours have been added to the Sunday schedule. So now we start at 7 in the morning and go on until 11 in the evening - which is stupid, if you ask me (because really, if you do want to vote, it's not like 14 hours aren't enough already 😏), and of course, even more exhausting for those who manage the polling place (that is, us). Bear in mind that we only get one free hour at lunch and one at dinner (by turns of course, usually three of us at a time), and that we have to count votes right after the polling place closes - which can be tricky as heck when there are elections that involve panachage, or actually expressing preferences for the candidates by writing down their names...I've been lucky, mostly (except the one time when there were 10+ referendums on the same day, and the numbers didn't add up, and we had to keep counting until after 4 in the morning 😵): my average hour for coming back home has always been 1-2 a.m., and I have more often than not been a part of one of the faster teams (once mine was literally the first one to deliver the ballot papers to the municipal office!). But if you find yourself assigned to a less expert president/secretary combo, you can spend hours trying to make sense of things...not to mention, there's not only the actual vote counting to do - you have to do all the paperwork, which can take as much time (if not more) than the counting itself.

I realise I've gotten ahead of myself though...because the day before the actual election (that is, on a Saturday), presidents, secretaries and clerks have to be at the polling place at 4 p.m. to validate the ballot papers - which means, signing and stamping every single one of them. This usually doesn't require more than a couple of hours' work, but of course it messes with your whole Saturday afternoon LOL. So, on average, we do 20 or more hours of work over the span of two days for an amount of money that has never changed since fifteen years ago or so...Here are our remunerations as of now:

• Presidents: € 120 (European elections) - € 130 (referendums) - € 150 (other elections and second ballots)
• Secretaries and clerks: € 96 (European elections) - € 104 (referendums) - € 120 (other elections and second ballots)

If there's more than one ballot paper at a time, you get respectively + € 37 (presidents) and + € 25 (secretaries and clerks) for each added paper. For instance: if there are 5 referendums at once, a clerk gets € 104 + 25 + 25 + 25 + 25 = € 204. If the added papers are more than four, though, the remuneration remains the same...Also, they tricked us this time. We had a European-municipal election combo, so we clerks should have been paid € 120 (for the local election) + € 25 (for the second ballot paper, the one for the European election, which incidentally was also the simpler one) =  € 145. But in the name of the new spending review, it was decided that the basis for our remuneration would be the European election fare (€ 96) + € 25 for the local election, for a grand total of  € 121 - that is, only 1 euro more than if we had had to work for the sole municipal elections 😡. It's been the only time in my life that I've hated the word "review" LOL. Also, what with having two elections in the same day (on May, Sunday 26th), the very day of the elections we only counted votes for the European one, and we had to go back to the polling place on Monday at 2 p.m. to count the municipal election votes (in my case, 3 hours more of work). Plus we got to work for another weekend (June 8th and 9th) because of the municipal second ballot - but we started counting votes at 11 p.m on Sunday 9th this time, and it "only" took my team 3 hours...(...well, at least we put more money in our bucket LOL).

On the very day of the election, clerks are divided in two teams made of two members each: one of the pairs gets assigned to the female voters, the other to the male ones (because they are on two separate registers). I know - what about non-binary people, etc.? The answer is that, as things stand now, they have to be registered on one list or the other 😦. So, one of the clerks checks the voter's identity cards and looks for that person's progressive number in the electoral register (where the identity card's number will promptly be annotated), then the same clerk reads the voter's number to the other clerk, who writes it down along with the voter's electoral card number - after making sure that it's still valid. When one from the pair goes for a break, the other takes on both tasks for the time being. Of course, you've got to be able to work pretty fast.

Despite the amount of work involved, spending almost a whole day (plus part of the Saturday) in the polling place is usually fun. There are amusing incidents, you get to see more people than you would see on your whole average month (well, this is true for me, at least), and you joke and chat and bond with your temporary co-workers, though you come from all but different ways of life, and most of the time you won't get to see them anymore after that couple of crazy days. On the other hand, it's physically demanding, especially at my old age (LOL), and you have only that couple of small breaks to eat and freshen up a little (plus bathroom breaks of course), which results in you stuffing your mouth without even tasting the things in your plate (or not even going home and falling back on a sad sandwich 😞). Also, in my particular case, I have to find a way around my domestic situation, because of my husband's health issues. Plus, I don't have a driving licence, so my husband - who is partially disabled but can drive - has to make sure his shifts allow him to drive me to the polling place (while, when we finish the job on Sunday night/Monday early morning, I always rely on one of my team members to get home). For four or five years I've been lucky, because I was assigned to the same polling place where I vote, which is literally a few meters from my house, so that I could come and go on feet - but lately I've been assigned to much more distant places.

So, my long tale has finally come to an end (though there will be a Pt.2 in a month, where I'll share a few funny incidents that I witnessed during poll duty). Now I'm curious how things work where you live (even if you have never been summoned to poll duty, I expect you to have voted!). Go ahead and let me now!