Hello fans!
So as you may have noticed from my lack of input and collaboration of late, I’ve been gone, far, far away… Where was I you ask? We’ll I’ll tell you! I have been working once again as a trainer for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners getting another few hundred college kids ready to troubleshoot problems that can arise with Chicago’s new(ish) electronic voting systems. So after the many long, long days that culminated into the grand finale that was yesterday, I am done. Its been a very interesting experience working and seeing just how much time and energy (and money) goes into our democracy in this country.
Yesterday was election day, and per usual myself and fellow trainers, lawyers, police investigators, and other official types were all cramped into a room downtown answering telephones troubleshooting issues that come up. It starts out with the calls like “No judges showed up at my precinct what do I do?” , or “When are you sending over my coffee and donuts?” or “Where is the television in our equipment so I can watch my training video?” and after a few hours turned into calls like “So and so is outside handing out materials for whatever aldermann” and “i just voted and the judge there was telling people who to vote for” and “Can you pick me up and take me to the precinct?, it’s icy out and I don’t want to walk.” (unfortunately we don’t offer that service)
The municipal elections bring out the best in Chicago politics, with politicians (or maybe just people supporting them in hopes to get that patronage gig at the end of the tunnel) trying to influence people into casting their hard earned votes towards them. This can happen simply by having an expensive sound truck outside the polling place constantly shouting phrases and reasons and “vote for jim person for ward wherever!” over and over. Or it can be from poll watchers handing out pamphlets directly outside the door of the polling place to try and influence that voter just before he or she votes. Or it could be from a judge who while issuing the ballots makes a “suggestion” towards one candidate or the other. From the calls we get it seems like everyone is doing this and at the same time calling to tell on the other guy for doing the same thing.
Now I wonder how many of these calls are truthful reports of what is going on or just people out there trying to use the system in whatever advantage they can to get that little edge to win. We take all of them as serious, documenting, sending out one of our investigators to check out the situation, but its really hard to tell if what people are telling you over the phone is actually what is going on. Quite amazing, you never think that in our modern age of elections (or maybe I am just naive) that it is possible to have a candidate who will hire two large intimidating men to stand outside of a precinct to “greet” voters as they show up to vote.
Well it just goes to show that elections are a big business these days, from the cost of the equipment, to the cost of training the people to run the elections, to the cost of a job for the few lucky people who get elected or get that patronage job for making that one crucial observation to push their candidate over the edge. Its been an interesting day/month, time to get back to the music.
When you think of payola, it’s not uncommon to think back to the olden days of radio when manila envelopes arrive at stations not-so-secretly stuffed with stacks of cash enticing program directors and DJs to play that ‘new hit.’
Many people (well the 2 people who read this site not named Aryn or Greg) might have figured out by now that I work for as a production assistant for NPR…specifically podcasting. One of the myriad projects I work on is an original to podcast show called NPR Playback. This concept was pitched to our podcasting illuminati to come up with a way to curate a podcast that looks into the NPR archives.