I covered the Spaghetti Supper and the polling station on the 9th Ward. Since everyone in class covered the spaghetti dinner, i'll talk about the 9th ward.
After I had gotten my interview with Commissioner Ed Szczesniak about the handicapped voting systems, I went downstairs and got to hang out with the people who'd been operating the polls all day. I learned several things from them, most importantly being that Onondaga County was still drastically understaffed on election day. The people sitting at the tables said that Onondaga County was still in need of a lot of people to check books and verify voter registration on election day.
They all seemed really stirr crazy and bored. All of them had been at the polling place since 5:30 that morning, and had only several breaks since I had spoken to them (which was sometime around 5:45), and they still had to sit and wait until 9PM to finish.
No wonder no one wants to do this job. Even though they get paid, all of the time and boredom hardly seems worth it. The people I spoke too seemed so excited to have someone else other than themselves to talk to.
So, to sum up, sitting in the basement of the Civic Center for 14-15 hours is enough to drive anyone crazy.
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