O P I N I O N
LEMENADE
By June Lemen
I am working the next election, which is the primary. I am nervous.
I‘ve felt a lot of emotions during elections. I’ve been apprehensive before, but that was mostly about the outcome of the election, not about the event itself. I’m a ballot inspector, and I have always enjoyed saying hello to my fellow residents of Ward 3, handing them a ballot, and participating in the democratic process. I like being part of the electoral process, even in a small way.
I have rarely felt nervous during an election itself, even though we do sometimes get people who seem to feel that the rules about elections apply only to other people, not to themselves. At the last election, when we told a young woman that she could not vote unless she covered the T-shirt advertising a candidate that she was wearing, she was quite surprised and told us that her husband had assured her that it was okay. “Free speech,” she said. When the moderator pointed out to her that it is against the law in the state of New Hampshire to wear apparel advertising a candidate into a polling place and that she would not be allowed to vote unless she covered that clothing, she buttoned her jacket and went into a booth to vote.
We’ve had all kinds of challenges at the polls, one of my favorites involving two men during COVID, who walked in without masks, which were required at the time. The moderator asked them if they intended to put on masks.
“No, and you cannot tell us not to vote. It is our right to vote.”
“True,” she said, and got each man a ballot and escorted them to the outdoor ballot station. It was a freezing cold evening, but they had to stand outside the school to vote and she escorted them out and walked them back in to deposit their ballots. They left looking quite sheepish. And chilled.
During the last election, a man yelled at us about the right to free speech when we told him he had to take off his hat to vote. We do have a right to free speech, but in the state of New Hampshire you cannot electioneer. I myself have been warned about electioneering. When Ward 3’s polling place was the Baptist church on Manchester Street, I agreed to hold a sign up for a candidate on Election Day. But it was my first time doing that, and I walked, holding my sign, across the parking lot to greet a friend, and got inside the prohibited corridor. In Nashua, the no-electioneering corridor is at least ten feet wide and extends from all entrances of the polling place. My walking with a sign was technically electioneering and I was reprimanded. Rightly so. People have a right not to be bothered on their way into the polls. The fact that I did this out of stupidity was no excuse.
For this upcoming primary, my friends and family have expressed concern. Most of my loved ones do not live in New Hampshire or in states that allow people to carry guns into polling places. I personally do not think people should be allowed to carry guns into polling places, but I know that what I think on this issue does not matter in this state. But I hope that this primary will be no different from any of the others that I have worked — that I will see my friends and neighbors, hand them their ballots, and vote — and that we will be civil to each other no matter what our political views are.
