By the time you read this, the incredibly emotional and polarizing election season will have concluded with Election Day. I am writing this Sunday night, two days before the election, not knowing the outcome.

I hope each and every one of you went to the polls to cast your votes Tuesday. When you did, you were greeted and assisted by a number of poll workers. These are your neighbors, residents of your borough or township, who work tirelessly twice a year to accurately record your votes.

They do not, I believe, deserve to be accused of attempting to rig an election.

“It’s a totally rigged system,” Republican candidate Donald Trump has been quoted as saying repeatedly.

Whitehall resident Suzanne Near is one of those poll workers.

She says, if there is fraud, “It’s not what’s happening at our local districts.”

Near has been a clerk at Whitehall’s 12th District polling site, currently located at the Islamic Center on Schadt Avenue, for 20 years. That’s 40 elections.

“I enjoy it,” she said. “You’re serving your country and your community.”

Poll workers arrive at 6 a.m. on Election Day and work until 9 p.m. or later - a very long workday.

Near works with a majority inspector and a minority inspector. These are the poll workers who manage the big books in which we enter our signatures before we vote. They hand a paper with the voter’s name on it to the clerk for tracking before the voter steps up to a voting machine.

Also at the polls are voting machine operators (there are two at the Islamic Center) and a judge of elections, who oversees the work flow, answers questions, handles provisional ballots and manages the output of the voting machines.

A constable is also present to keep the peace.

How did Near become an election clerk? She simply filled out a form indicating an interest in helping out when she went to vote in 1984. Two years later, she received a call asking if she was still interested. After a few hours of training, she was ready for her first election.

The Republican presidential candidate has called for poll watchers from his party to oversee the conduct of elections to prevent voter fraud.

Near says in the 40 elections for which she has clerked, there have been only two times when poll watchers were present at her district site to observe. Two days before this election, she said she expected there would be one or more present this year.

Was she concerned about how her day would go?

“I have had anxiety for about a month,” she said. “I am not concerned about my physical safety. It’s the turmoil.”

In the past, she said, if a voter would make a comment or a wisecrack about a candidate he opposed while at the poll, the judge of elections would step in and tell him that such talk was not acceptable at the polls, and that would be the end of it, she said. But this year, she worried, might be different.

“Everyone is so hyped up and passionate about what’s going on that you’re never sure about what might happen,” she said.

Whatever has happened on Tuesday, it is not likely to affect Near’s decision to faithfully serve her country and community.

And for this steadfast determination to count, recount and cross-check our votes until late at night on each Election Day, I would like to state my sincere appreciation to our local poll workers.

Thanks for all you do.

As for Near, her final sentiments line up with those of many of us who have lived through this election season.

“I just want it over with,” she said.

Linda

Wojciechowski

associate editor

Catasauqua Press