Classroom Publication

Media Credit: AT Networks courtesy of AT Network

On Election Day, the voting centers were filled to capacity with people waiting to cast their votes. However when arriving at the polling center (located at 255 Orange Street in Albany) at approximately 8:45 PM, it could not go unnoticed that there was no one voting. The only people that were in the building at that time were the people who were working the polling place.

Though the polling area seemed dull and dead at first, the individuals that were running the center were up to their necks in last minute issues that had to be dealt with before the polls closed at 9:00 PM. They were just hoping that for the next 15 minutes, no more people would come in to vote. "It has been so busy today that I, I mean we haven't had the time for a break or a snack," Josephine an election volunteer said. She was relieved when she was notified that nobody else would be coming in to vote. Still there was the task of counting up the votes and recording them.

Originally one volunteer had an issue with a journalist coming into record the results from the voting. However once there was confirmation that a member of the media was allowed to be present and have the numbers, the volunteer was asked to remain at the side and not say a word. One of the three voting machines was on the ground floor while the other two were located on the second floor of the building.

Finally, as the clock stroked 9:00 PM, the entrance doors were closed and locked. Now all the volunteers had to do was count the votes and record them. Standing over the shoulders of the volunteers to get the results, I was reminded to stand to the side and not say a word as they counted the votes from the machine. The good thing that they did was count one voting machine at a time. They knew it would take a few minutes from each machine. John 47, had been volunteering since 5:30 AM and was happy that the numbers were finally going to be read off. As they started calling out the number of votes, one woman would read from the machine, and another volunteer would repeat the amount for that candidate or proposal decision and record it on their documents. Once the ground floor machine was done, it was time to take the elevator to the second floor to get the results from the other two machines.

There seemed to be more volunteers on the second floor due to the fact that they had two machines there. One woman even brought her 6 year old daughter who was jumping on the couch and cheering the name "Obama." As they were counting from one of the two machines, everyone in the hallway was instructed to "keep their mouth's shut" and wait for further instructions once the counting was complete. Once again each number of votes was counted off very slowly as to not make any mistakes. Then once the second machine was done, it was time to record the third machine. The results for this machine however were recorded in a much faster time, until finally all the votes were counted and recorded. "Thank the lord and halleluiah. Now all we have to do is go home and wait to see if our candidate won," volunteer Shirley said. She confirmed later that she hoped Obama was going to be the next president.

As the volunteers were preparing to leave the building at 9:30 PM, the voting machines were put under lock and key, the tables were cleaned up and put away and everyone hurried to the front door. Some volunteers claimed that they had been in the building since 5:00 AM that morning.

Now that the voting results were in the media representative's hand, it was time to call them into the local news station. Luckily the phone call went through the first time and the information was read out. By 11:00 PM that night, majority of the votes had been calculated and it was determined that Senator Barack Obama was going to become the 44th President of the United States.

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