All the mess around the US elections make me think : What are weird stuff you’ve seen occurring during election days no matter whether it’s incident, crazy voters/questions or even straight-up fraud ?
Also thanks to all of you who volunteer to run/observe an election, you’re keeping your country democracy alive.
Weirdest I’ve seen was that voter who comes to his voting office, not to vote but to insult The president, The mayor, the volunteer and staff present, and even some of the voters we spent like 5 minutes trying to de-escalate and negotiate Please either leave or vote, but stop insulting everyone and it’s finally when the voting office chairwoman took her phone to call the cops that this guy went away. (Thanks for the extra paperwork, because event though the cops didn’t have to physically remove a person out of the voting station, we know had to describe the incident in the report, at least it was a consensual decision for every official present)
On more banal stuff I’ve seen that tall/large gentleman on crutches who put the voting booth down when trying to enter inside.
In MA, when I worked the polls in 2020, they had a cop on duty in the polling location the whole day to deal with any yahoos like that. To be clear, that’s ALL they’re there for - they’re otherwise completely uninvolved with the administering of the election, and the operation of the polling location. Iirc the guy was just reading a book most of the time. I admit I’m somewhat surprised more jurisdictions don’t have some sort of policy like that. At the same time, I’m sure it would be abused by police forces in some parts of the country.
I worked a precinct that was right next to a huge nursing home. One guy who was 98, came in and after getting his ballot fell down and was unresponsive. Luckily the home had their own staff join the groups that came to vote and resuscitated him and he continued exactly where he left off at tortoise pace.
Also lots of people who were not registered or at the wrong polling place but insist on voting anyways despite me patiently explaining and showing them how to solve the issue. They demand to “vote” so they get a provisional ballot that we dutifully process which likely will be rejected. All of them are certain we are stealing their ballot, or trying to keep them from voting. I always say to them, “you seem like you are someone who knows a lot about the election process and has the time, we need people like you to volunteer” while offering them the volunteering paperwork. They leave pretty quickly after that.
Luckily the home had their own staff join the groups that came to vote and resuscitated him and he continued exactly where he left off at tortoise pace.
That seems terrifying
I’m in the Netherlands, helping out at a station in a school gym. This station had three booths, with one low-height voting booth, both for shorter people, but also for people in wheelchairs and whatever other reason. A man in his mid-30’s comes up in a wheelchair, we check his ID, hand him a ballot and the famous red pencil, and point to the direct of the booths, where someone has the temerity of allready occupying the wheelchair booth! GASP, SHOCK!
The guy proceeds to absolutely flip his shit, calling us bigots, racists, haters and nazis for not letting him vote from a wheelchair. That “people like us” have always hated him. For what’s it worth, note that both him and me are roughly the colour of fresh milk.
It was super awkward, because the man was “punch-your-face” angry, and I was the only person there who was under 60… But like… he’s in a wheelchair, and I’m sure he’d hurt himself a lot more than me. I was seriously considering just wheeling him out, but he hadn’t voted yet, and assholes have rights too, and the optics aren’t exactly great on that. One of the old ladies who also volunteered told me “Don’t worry girl, we get a few like that every time, just let him go and laugh about it over dinner”.
The kept ranting on his way out the door.