Chattanooga Needs a Civics Lesson

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Oh, and reading would help.  More on that in a minute. My Election Day experience did not involve long lines, cantankerous voting machines, or provisional ballots.  I was stationed at the Brainerd Recreation Complex (aka "the Center"), which is one of three early voting locations in Hamilton County.  However, it is not an Election Day polling place, although it has been used as one in the recent past.

My assignment, straight from Administrator Bud Knowles, was to intercept voters who reside in the one precinct that used to vote there and had recently changed locations, and direct them to the new place.  It sounds simple enough.  However, I did the same thing in August for the state primary and county general elections, and I quickly learned that day that the majority of those who stopped by expecting to vote did not reside in the one precinct for which I had been provided directions.  That day, in many cases, all I could do was shrug and advise people to call the election commission office. This time, I knew to be a little more prepared, so I used the Hamilton County GIS Map Maker to create a few labeled maps of the area, and printed those along with a partial list of the precinct names and voting locations for each.  An official came by and dropped off a few precinct lists that had street names and house numbers associated to surrounding precincts, because he, too, remembered the August election.  (The single most effective aid, by far, was my internet-enabled mobile phone, by which I was able to look up a street address on the Election Commission's Web site and obtain the precinct information.)  There were people there trying to vote before I arrived, and they kept coming all day. A typical conversation between a voter (or a voter's driver) and me would begin like this:

Voter: "Are they not voting here today?" Me: "No, this was only for early voting." Voter: "Where are they voting (at)?" Me: "All over the county, in all the precincts.  Do you know in which precinct you're registered?"

The variations started here.  "But I voted here last time!"  (Perhaps so, but you might have voted early, because your address shows that you are in a different precinct than was assigned to this place.)   "So I'm supposed to go to the one on Amnicola?"  (No, the Election Commission office is only for early voting, too.)  "Where is the closest one?"  (Well, the closest one is right next door at Brainerd High School, but only the Woodmore precinct votes there.  Are you in Woodmore?)  Upon learning the correct voting location: "Where is that?"  (Well, the address here says it's on Bonny Oaks/Lee Highway/Shepherd Rd, and it's a Teamsters Local/Knights of Columbus/Multi-purpose building, and hopefully you can find it with that information, since it's really close to where you live/were last registered to vote.) There are several factors that led to the confusion.  One, the Election Commission has used Brainerd Rec as a regular (non-early voting) polling place for more than just the one precinct.  I saw registration cards for the "Eastgate 1" precinct that were printed several years ago and listed the Center, and one voter told me that the Sunnyside precinct had also once been temporarily located there.  This just meant that the simple logic of "if you've voted here before on Election Day, then you now go to the Brainerd Baptist Annex" was unreliable.  Add to that the fact that quite a few people misremember voting early there as "on Election Day," and you've got a bit of a mess. Two, the names.  The one precinct whose voters I was officially supposed to help is named "Brainerd."  But so is the whole area.  Ask anyone from the levee to Missionary Ridge, north to Wilcox and south to East Ridge, if s/he lives in "the Brainerd precinct," and you'll likely get an affirmative response.  Likewise, the precinct number is "6," which is often confused with Chattanooga City Council District 6, as the latter completely envelops the former.  And one man got away before I could stop him after he read the precinct name "Eastgate 2" on his card and promptly headed to Eastgate Town Center to vote.  (The Eastgate precincts vote at New Covenant Fellowship Church, but only recently; before that, Tucker Rd Baptist; and before that, who knows?) Thirdly, there is the problem with reading what is on one's registration card before heading out to vote.  I didn't count how many people drove up to the Center, found out they couldn't vote there, and pulled out freshly printed voter registration cards with the name and address of their actual polling place right there in plain English.  Another common utterance throughout the day: "That's almost right across the street from my house!"  And then: "Are there long lines over there?"  (Well, given that I have the power to be in multiple places at once, I can answer that for you!  You're welcome!)  A woman who was at the Center for an exercise class chatted with me for a few minutes while she waited for her ride.  She sympathized with my situation, and at one point quipped, "you know what they say: the best way to keep something hidden from people is to put it in writing." Lest you think I posted this merely to whine about the people who had trouble understanding where to vote, I'll add that there were many positive moments sprinkled into the day.  The weather, first of all, couldn't have been finer.  But more importantly, watching people get out and vote, when they're old and young, black and white, rich and poor, brought John Greenleaf Whittier's “The Poor Voter on Election Day" to life.  Even though their stopping by my location may have inconvenienced both of us, it gave me a chance to witness part of history. But there must be something we can do to increase the level of understanding, not only of voting locations, but of our governments in general.  One man, after learning that the polling place for his precinct had been moved, shook his head and muttered "that's our City Council for ya."  "No," I called after him, as he walked away.  "That was the Election Commission."  I don't disagree with the decision to make the Brainerd Recreation Complex strictly an early voting place, but if you're going to castigate someone for it, at least blame the right entity.  By the way: according to officials at the Election Commission, if a polling place is moved for whatever reason, every registered voter in that precinct is mailed a new voter registration card that indicates the new location. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v1.1) defines "civics" as "the study or science of the privileges and obligations of citizens."  A better knowledge of civics would help put people in touch with the mechanisms by which they choose their elected officials (along with a whole bunch of other cool stuff).  And that, in turn, may help them figure out where to vote.