California voters cast ballots on a wet election day: ‘I’m doing my part’ As the counting continued, a couple of volunteers were on hand to keep things organized and ensure people didn’t miss the final result.
Cheryl Jones-Kotter, a retiree and longtime activist in Los Angeles, has been working as a volunteer poll worker at her polling place at the Westlake Center for about three weeks.
“I’ve been working here just because I’m a Democrat. It’s an easy gig for me to get it, because I don’t do any political work, so I got it and now I’m here,” Jones-Kotter told ABC News.
Her efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. “I’m doing my part,” she said. “I’m happy about it.”
A day later, Jones-Kotter was still at work, but she had more to do. She helped hand out voter registration forms to people who weren’t able to make it to the Westlake polling place on Thursday morning. In one room at the center were more than 100 voters being served by the Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office and about a score of poll workers, and still more voters waiting to be served. Two men were waiting for someone in the room. One, a white man with a beard and the other, a man in his 50s or 60s. When their turn came, the older man approached Jones-Kotter and asked a question. Was she a registered voter?
“I just smiled, and said, sure, I’m already a registered voter,” Jones-Kotter told ABC News. “He said, ‘Are you working for the county’? I said, ‘No, I’m just here to be a poll worker.’ And he thanked me and said he was working for the city.”
Jones-Kotter left her newly discovered volunteer gig to head to another voter service room, and then again to the office of the Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office and pick up some more registration forms.
County Registrar of Voters Scott Brantly was a little more reluctant to reveal what happened when he arrived at the Westlake Center. But in his email to ABCNews.com, he wrote that officials did not have to ask him anything because he was on official voter registration duty.
