CANAAN — For Carole Cushman, every election day is a reunion.
There are people to greet, family members to inquire after and former students to catch up with.
And primary day was no different.
“It’s fun,” Cushman said. “You see all of these people once or twice a year.”
I spent more than an hour with Cushman last Tuesday at the Canaan Fire Department to get an idea of the work that volunteers do to make town elections run smoothly. In Canaan — like other places throughout the state — many volunteers are retired seniors.
As volunteer work goes, it’s no easy task. The days are long and the amount of information to keep track of is vast, a lesson Cushman learned on her first Election Day.
Cushman has been a ballot volunteer in Canaan since 1984 and got involved when her mother-in-law served as town clerk. Her first election was President Ronald Reagan’s reelection in 1984 (in which he handily defeated his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Walter Mondale).
“We were up until 2 o’clock in the morning counting ballots,” Cushman recalled.
As the night wore on counting paper ballots, she began thinking of her kids at home and how she had to wake up at 5 a.m. the next day to get them ready for school.
When the counting of individual paper ballots was discontinued (Cushman can’t quite remember when), the volunteer hours needed started to shrink.
“It’s so much easier now,” she said.
On Tuesday, Cushman was one of three volunteers tasked with checking in voters.
“You,” she said, standing up as a young man entered the fire station and gave him a hug. “I’m so glad to see you.”
She directed him to where he could register to vote.
“Such a nice kid,” she told me as she sat back down.
Cushman worked in the Mascoma School District for years as a library assistant and driver’s education instructor.
“They didn’t give me any crap,” she recalled of her students. “They wanted that green slip, so no discipline problems.”
Cushman is a true believer in the power one vote can have, particularly in town elections. She remembers a vote from years ago to approve a water and sewer project. With 10 minutes left until polls closed, her neighbor decided that he should vote.
“He went down and cast the winning ballot by one vote,” Cushman said. “That’s what I remember it as.”
Of course, with so many people filtering through the polls, it can be tough to remember everyone’s name, which gets a little awkward — especially when they remember hers. Years ago, Cushman and a fellow volunteer developed a system that they used when they sat next to each other at a check-in table. If one of them didn’t know the name of a voter at their table, they’d lightly kick the other to get assistance.
“We’d boost each other along,” Cushman said with a laugh.
She doesn’t have a favorite election, though some stand out to her because they of the voters they drew.
“We had a huge turnout in 2008 with Barack Obama, the first time he ran,” Cushman said. “We had a lot of young (people) register.”
And even amid the increasing tensions and often vitriolic language that have surrounded recent elections, people are generally polite and kind at the polls, according to Cushman.
Sometimes voters get frustrated if think they are undeclared but learn at the polls that they’re registered to a party. There’s also occasional pushback from voters who want to display political candidate garb in the polling place and are told they legally cannot. (Volunteers tell people that their partisan attire is fair game outside.)
“No matter where you work, you’re going to run into some people who are cranky,” Cushman said. But when that happens, her job is to remain kind and calm.
Cushman cites two major changes she’s seen in her three-plus decades as a volunteer: the discontinuation of hand-counting paper ballots and the introduction of same-day voter registration.
“It was not a user-friendly method,” she said of pre-Election Day registration. “You don’t get nearly as many upset people.”
Cushman and the other volunteers take breaks throughout the day. The busiest times tend to be in the morning when the polls open and in the late afternoon when people stop in after work.
“It’s just fun,” Cushman said. “You can see that.”
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
