In 2016 I signed up as volunteer lawyer to go to Nevada to monitor polling places during early voting and the general election. My job was to watch what was happening and report anything irregular to the lawyers who sat in what’s known as a “boiler room.” The boiler room lawyers solved whatever problems they could, and escalated issues requiring legal action to the litigation team.
Two years later, I received an email asking if I’d go back for the 2018 midterms. This time, fortunately, I brought my husband for reinforcement.
Our adventure
Each party was allowed to have one insider observer. Outside observers could only talk to voters more than 100 feet from the door.
Andy was stationed outside a polling place, watching, and I was inside. So there I was, wearing business casual (I looked like a lawyer but not too much like a lawyer) when the Republican observer sat down next to me, wearing a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, jeans, and a red plaid shirt. (No kidding).
He said, “What side are you on?”
Me (as innocently as I could manage): “Aren’t we all on the same side? The side of American democracy?”
He wasn’t amused. “I think you’re one of those California lawyers coming over here butting into our elections.”
I couldn’t lie even if I had wanted to. Our car had California license plates.
He left the polling place. Soon afterward, the sheriff arrived to follow up on a report that Andy was violating the law by talking to voters within 100 feet of the polling place. Andy did not (and would not) break the law. Andy talked to the sheriff, who talked to the polling place manager, who told the Sherrif that no, Andy was following rules.
I called the boiler room and told them what happened. They were planning to send us to a different polling location anyway. So we went to the next polling place (after a brief stop at Starbucks) and took our places, me inside, Andy outside.
Then guess who showed up. Yup, the cowboy. He’d evidently followed us. I called the boiler room and told them it was getting a little creepy. They moved us to a different polling place. He followed us there, too.
So the boiler room folks came up with a plan. They gave us driving directions. The idea was to fake him out. He’d think we were moving on to the nearest polling place, but at the last moment, we would switch lanes, get off the highway at a particular exit and swing around and get on a different highway. If we did it right, he wouldn’t be able to follow us. We would then go to a polling place in the next county.
It worked. We lost him.
I think that qualifies as an actual car chase even though (of course) we never broke the speed limit. It was my first car chase, and I hope my last.
Georgia Democrats
In 2018, I met the director of voter protection in Georgia and told her I’d be happy to do volunteer work. She gave me the job of updating the Georgia Democrats’ Election Law Handbook. At the end of that task, I knew quite a bit about Georgia election law. She invited me into the boiler room during the primaries and the 2020 general election. I was also asked to join the Georgia voter protection committee.
Over the past year, I also put in dozens of hours of volunteer work for 866-Our-Vote.
This cycle, I’m back in the Georgia Democrats Boiler Room, putting in 12 – 18 hours during early voting. I’ll be in their boiler room all day Tuesday.
I hope I won’t be needed. As a general rule, it’s good when nobody needs the lawyers.
Note: I have disabled my comments. Because this is a personal website, I felt I needed to monitor the comments for appropriateness, and it was getting to be too much of a time drain. I hope you understand.