Observers -

[Ms. Toad]

Send good thoughts tomorrow for your observers.

This is the fourth presidential election for which I've been an observer - and I'm worried. There seem to be about 2/3 new observers (a lot of experienced observers got snagged to be pollworkers). Credentialing (formal approval with a certificate that says you have a right to be inside the polling place and see everything) is always a bit chaotic - this year is no different. They are always juggling talents v. needs - so the first year I did this, I was switched from inside observer (during the early voting) to roving observer for election day(so they could send me to the place of greates need) to boiler room (since I am intimately familiar with voting machines - and they expected it to be an issue that year + I had caught a number of subtle problems during early voting so I'd built up a reputation). But - the last change came after 10 PM before the shift started at 5:30 AM.

So that part of the process is always unnerving - since you never know until the last minute where you will end up. But - the training this year was more chaotic than usual. And not everyone was sent all of the the documents that would let them do the job without much training - or they wound up in spam. I even volunteered to help out with training after my own training was not so hot. They didn't take me up on it. I attended a Q&A - which was better - but not advertised widely enough so that most people could find it. So I'm staying up for a while fielding questions on the conversation tool to try to calm nerves and point people in the right direction. Not my job, and I think I'm making the powers that be cranky, but I want my fellow observers to have the tools to do their jobs.

So send happy thoughts, or prayers, or good vibes for all of us tomorrow!