Picture this: You’re an elections official in a small town, wading through the most unusual balloting process of your career. It’s Nov. 1, two days from the “official” Election Day, but hundreds or thousands of mail-in ballots have already arrived at your workplace.
Most of us have been training for a nightmare scenario since 01/20/2017.
Given this nightmare scenario, local Elections Boards and Voter Services Departments should keep two distinct “teams” separated, but still working. This will help ensure that if one team gets sick, the other can pick up the slack. This method isn’t foolproof, however, as both teams could get infected independently.
Nightmare scenario indeed . . .
Been in that scenario for almost 4 years now.
”Picture this: You’re an elections official in a small town…Suddenly, you get a call: One of your coworkers has been diagnosed with COVID-19. The entire office must be quarantined at home. The uncounted ballots begin to stack up.”
Here’s an ever more frightening scenario: My sister-in-law works at a public library. One day, midpandemic, some Trump-loving yahoo got in her face over masking (the county and city mandated it), and – to prove some “point” – deliberately began spitting on surfaces.
Given the Brownshirt-like cult that worships Trump, I expect similar assaults at election offices and polling places all across America on Election Day, to deliberately create quarantined biohazard areas.
These Peoples Temple dead-enders will stop at nothing – not even poisoning their own children – to shut down an election they know spells doom for their Jonestown dystopia.
We all need to fasten our seatbelts, because we’re in for a bumpy ride.
I know it is OT but this article captured a feeling I’ve had for the past several years that I couldn’t put a name to. This is probably the most important election I have ever voted in and yet there is the curious and, until now, inexplicable sense of ennui infecting my attitude. Oddly I now find myself re-energized (sorry to interject).
The Tedium of Trump
No matter how many crazy things happen, the fundamentals are the same: The president is a greedy racist and misogynist who does not understand his job.
Gian Gravina once said, “a bore deprives you of solitude without offering companionship.” Beyond the venality, incompetence, and malevolence of Trump’s administration has been its intrusive vulgarity; like a nasty kid farting in a small car, you can’t seem to get away from any of it including the perp’s manic giggles.
Just because you’re in quarantine doesn’t mean you can’t zoom into the office for questions. Because by now it too late, but shouldn’t there be a manual, updated to give step by step procedures to the process? And by manual yes I mean a binder, but in today’s technology on a computer. Should still have paper copy for if the electricity goes out.
I sure do hope that DHS and FBI are keeping a watch on our electric grid, it would be a shame if something happened on 11/03/20.
Vote for Joe and get the pep in your step back.
You misspelled “get your sanity back.”
LOL.
Slightly O/T but, as a county employee, I signed up to volunteer with the county registrar of voters yesterday after that office sent out an email to county employees seeking volunteers to monitor all 116 ballot drop boxes in the county on Election Day to make sure they are closed and secure. Volunteers will get a stipend of $100 in lieu of salary that day.
Pep or not I’m voting Biden/Harris all the way down to local level: all Democrats except for one independent.
Trying not to hijack topic so I’ll add that we’ve been voting by mail for a long time here in Oregon so the issue of polling place quarantine is moot but counting the votes still has to happen and quarantine could complicate that, and perhaps more significantly in this election given Trump’s threats, might delay the count.
I should also add that we’ve had motor voting for the past four years but with local DMV offices closed due to Covid19 that has complicated the ease of voter registration too.
Can’t count paper ballots over zoom.
Good for you. 
What If The Elections Office Has To Quarantine?
Easy answer… if it’s a Republican leaning office you assume all registered voters voted for Trump; if it’s a Democratic leaning office you simply toss the votes.
Off topic but what’s up with this?
Dear Lord anybody can count just ask this guy.
It’s so easy even a Muppet can do it.
I had this exact same thought 
So glad that you are doing this. 
This is the first comment from irasdad I can remember that didn’t make me laugh out loud. Anything that makes irasdad go all serious is, um, serious indeed.
I will just say this is my fear too—attacks on election offices attempting to disrupt the vote counting or destroy ballots or vote counting equipment. Brooks Brothers riots on steroids and not by people wearing Brooks Brothers suits.
I also foresee attacks on mail processing centers serving Philadelphia, Detroit and a dozen other cities in swing states to prevent the postmarking or delivery of late ballots. Then like in Portland, Trump sends in armed squads to “protect” federal property which shuts everything down. And gee, a whole bunch of ballots just happen to get vandalized in the process. Yeah, people would scream, but what are you gonna do if a huge chunk of ballots are just gone? Have another election?
I sure hope all these disaster planners thought about how they’re going to physically protect the ballots because that’s what it may come down to.