Desperate pleas for more hands on deck tugged at her civic conscience — and unraveling the mysteries of how elections really, truly work tugged at her curiosity.

How easy is it, really, to cheat?

Helen Myers, first-time poll worker and usually independent voter — registered Republican this time around to vote for some specific candidates — answered the Orange County Registrar of Voters’ call, thinking she’d be committing for a couple of days of service.

She was at an Anaheim school on Thursday, unpacking election equipment and setting up the room. She was there on Friday, checking in voters. She was there on Saturday, and on Sunday, and on Monday, hours stretching from 7:30 in the morning to 9 at night. On Election Day, she braced to start and end her labors in darkness, with a 6 a.m.-to-10 p.m. schedule. “I don’t do stuff like this anymore!” she laughed, trying to fit in a grocery run on one of her breaks Monday. “It’s incredible.”

Tired, yes, but getting up close and personal with the voting system has been worth the price of admission.

‘People appreciate us’

Alice Ovanesian, right, of Newport Beach an election supervisor who oversees five election sites for the midterm election, stands by the ballot drop-off site in the parking lot at the vote center located at the Irvine Civic Center in Irvine on Tuesday, November 8, 2022. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The poll watcher stood vigil at the Irvine Civic Center for hours. Watching as people lined up. Watching as they were checked in. Watching as their paper ballots were printed. Watching as folks filled them out, fed them into the reader machines, claimed their “I voted” stickers and left.

Irvine, not being Arizona, had no armed ballot-guarding vigilantes to worry about on Tuesday — but the torrential downpour made it seem as if the gods were angry. This was election supervisor Alice Ovanesian’s second tour of duty — she worked the June primary, and now had five polling places to make sure ran smoothly — and it was clear at soggy daybreak that the parking lot poll workers collecting drive-up ballots would be royally drenched. The Orange County Registrar of Voters swung into action and dispatched rain gear and sturdy canopy tents — with protective sides — to the drive-up sites to keep people, and precious ballots, dry.

“This is a blast!” said Daniel McPherson of Tustin as he collected ballots from a line of cars between downpours. “People appreciate us. It’s really nice to be appreciated.”

Daniel McPherson of Tustin, a first-time election customer service representative, checks ballots being dropped off in the parking lot at the vote center for the midterm election at the Irvine Civic Center in Irvine on Tuesday, November 8, 2022. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

That problem solved, Ovanesian slipped into one of the worker’s chairs to cover for someone on a break. She had been working since Oct. 28 to set the gears of democracy spinning — unpacking, setting up and securing machinery, making sure there were enough ballot paper and pens et al. at each site — and after the last ballots returned to the Registrar of Voters on Tuesday night, she expected to be back on Wednesday morning to break everything down, pack it up and get it back to the Registrar’s office again. For next time.

Process is precious

With a line out the door, every station was filled with voters as they cast their ballots late morning for the midterm election at the vote center at the Northwood Community Center in Irvine on Tuesday, November 8, 2022. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Ovanesian didn’t really know what she was getting into when she answered the Registrar’s call for poll workers and was drafted to be supervisor. Supervisors must have three full days of training covering everything from election law to customer service. They must pass tests. If they come back for return duty, as she has, they must do refreshers. The schedule starts out reasonably — 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. — but mushrooms into 12- and 14- hour and longer days as the nearly two weeks of duty wear on.

A retired IT supervisor who lives in Newport Beach, Ovanesian was surprised by the extent of checks and balances built into the system. Poll workers are background-checked. No one is left alone with ballots; there are always at least two workers on duty with them. They’re counted — numerically — then sealed in boxes secured with numbered tags resembling zip ties. Two workers caravan them back to the Registrar’s office, where the zip ties are inspected to be sure they haven’t been tampered with, and the numbers on the zip ties are checked to ensure they match the numbers affixed at the polling place, and that there are the same number of ballots in the box now as there were before. And before the lights go out at the polling sites themselves, voting machines are also locked with numbered tags, those numbers are recorded, and they’re checked the following morning to make sure they match.

Ovanesian came to the United States from Armenia when she was 15 years old. Her ancestors didn’t have a free vote. It doesn’t matter if she’s tired at the end of the day, or if her boots are soaking wet. She wakes up eager to get back to work. This process, she knows, is precious.

Serrell Law of Irvine, an election customer service representative for more than ten years, checks voters in for the midterm election at the vote center at the Irvine Civic Center in Irvine on Tuesday, November 8, 2022. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

‘System is safe’

Serrell Law, a veteran of more than 10 elections, runs the show at the Irvine Civic Center. She manned the polls back when there was just a single day of voting — setting up at 6:30 a.m. and breaking down late at night. She manned the polls when the county’s voting system was light years behind what it has today.

This one produces both a paper ballot and a scanned electronic count of that ballot — allowing the counts to be cross-checked and verified. It’s a darling of many political science types, but some are skeptical nonetheless.

Election pins on the lanyard of Serrell Law of Irvine, an election customer service representative for more than ten years, as she checks voters in for the midterm election at the vote center at the Irvine Civic Center in Irvine on Tuesday, November 8, 2022. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

She stood at the head of a line of would-be voters with a mobile E-POll Book (or iPad, in common parlance) in hand, trying to move things along by checking people in while they waited. One man gave the device the stink-eye. She assured him that it was simply a mobile version of the desktop computers the workers were using, and that they were all on the same system, and that by checking him in this way, his custom ballot would be ready to print as soon as he got to the desk. He declined, saying he’d rather be checked in up there.

Law was gracious and moved on to check in the next person. “The system,” Law said later, “is safe.”

Retired from work in children and family services, Law answered the Registrar’s call for poll workers as a way to give back. It’s been so rewarding that she comes back again, and again, and again. “I love helping people,” she said. “It’s rewarding to be able to help everyone vote securely and protect the vote. That’s what we do.”

Inside look leaves no concerns

As of Tuesday, the Orange County Registrar of Voters had mailed out 1,880,764 ballots. As of mid-day, 464,981 ballots had been returned, almost evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans (at nearly 200,000 each). In-person ballots cast were a paltry 26,424 on Monday, but more than doubled by Tuesday afternoon.

Myers, the first-time poll worker in Anaheim, has learned that she doesn’t need to worry about the system’s integrity. “The way we’re doing things in Orange County, I don’t see how anyone could ever cheat or do anything suspicious,” she said. “The only way I could see anything going on in OC is if the voter rolls aren’t updated, or if someone walks in with 10 vote-by-mail ballots. We’d probably set those aside and there would be questions asked. In Orange County, there isn’t going to be a box of ballots pulled out from under a  table and scanned. The system is tight.”

Related Articles