The Weekly goes behind the scenes at the polls.

The 11-person team in Seaside’s Oldemeyer Center is ready when the polling place opens Nov. 4 at 7am. Their first voters have arrived 10 minutes early.

The volunteer poll workers shepherd voters to their precincts and assist them from sign-in to ballot. Then they send them to the voting stations, which are lined up against the windows. Inspectors Ileana Coatu and Terri Schreader oversee the process.

One man tells them he's moved and needs to re-register. Coatu guides him through the proper form, then follows up with her team to explain what to do if another voter arrives in a similar situation. The man receives a pink provisional ballot to cast his vote. It will be processed separately and counted by hand.

This illustrates Schreader’s philosophy: “Never turn away a voter.”

Since this is not a presidential election, the foot traffic is slow and gradual. When not processing voters, team members chat, crack jokes, stretch their legs or nibble on fruit and muffins.

Many volunteer poll workers become buddies. They call Monterey County Elections long in advance of November, requesting to be assigned to the same location, and staffers are generally happy to oblige. Coatu and Schreader have been working together for 12 years, through three presidential elections. 

Running an election is an all-day process. The schedule sounds daunting: arrive at 6am, set up, stay until the polls close at 8pm, wait for the last voter to finish and take down. Even so, some volunteers return year after year. There's even a waitlist.

Alberto Caceras, hailing from Puerto Rico, voted for the first time three years ago. He was driven to do more. “I can’t restrict myself to staying at home when I could help,” he says.

Since this is his first election, he was up the night before, anxiously re-reading the materials from the training session—thick, stapled packets that could fill a novella. Then his nerves woke him at 3am, derailing plans for a restful night.

Now, surrounded by other volunteers, he is comfortable. “I just met these people, and I was welcome immediately,” he says. 

By 4:30pm, when the post-workday crowds start arriving, the Oldemeyer poll team seems tired but cheerful. Molly McKnight takes a walk around the building to shake her weariness. Others are eating chips, jerky or energy bars. Katy Pearce tries her hand at a sample ballot and jokingly messes it up.

Tony, a poll worker who asks me not to use his full name, recounts a young girl who came in earlier with her mother. They gave her a sample ballot so she could experience the voting process. The girl returned the ballot unfinished.

“She said she had to go home and research it more,” Tony says with a laugh. He dutifully told her that wasn’t allowed: Once a voter starts a ballot at the polling place, they need to finish there.

Other voters are more problematic. No campaigining is allowed within 100 feet of a polling place entrance, but Schreader recalls a man annoying voters last year. They had to measure: He was in the clear, just 6 inches outside the 100-foot radius.

All of the volunteers have a different reason for being here. For Schreader, it's the people. “I’m retired, but what I miss most about working is the camaraderie,” she says. Coatu, an immigrant from Argentina, is proud to be part of a process she sees as “genuine.”

Michelle Luis remembers being part of history. She first volunteered at the polls during the 2008 presidential election, and she was counting ballots while listening to news that Obama was winning. “It was all happening in the moment,” she says.

She’s kept coming back, and she wants to see more young people like herself volunteering. Although voters have to be at least 18 years old, volunteers can be younger, and Luis says it’s a good chance to learn about the democratic process.

Caceras is tired after his first tour of polling duty, but he is pleased with how smoothly the day went. The next election is presidential, he notes: “I think I will do it again.”