Election Day Through the Eyes of Teen Poll Workers

Two La Grange High School seniors worked as election clerks at City Hall on Election Day last Tuesday, Nov. 8.

Will Bundick and Josh Behlen found out about the opportunity in government class from their teacher, Christopher Westall..

“Our teacher asked if anyone wanted to sign up,” said Behlen, who plans to attend Texas A&M next year with a goal of entering dental school.

“We saw it as an opportunity to see how elections work and gain more insight,” said Bundick, who plans to study business and economics at Ole Miss after graduation. It was really fun, just seeing what goes into the process of what it takes to elect government officials.”

“It really gave me an inside look at what goes on behind voting,” said Behlen. “It was an inside look at democracy itself.”

The Fayette County Elections Office assigned them to work as election clerks at the La Grange North Voting Precinct in La Grange City Hall. They worked the entire day, arriving around 6:30 a.m. and leaving at 7:30 p.m.

“I helped people sign in,” Bundick said. “I made sure they had everything they needed. If they were at the wrong polling site, we would tell them where they needed to go.”

Behlen said he was surprised at the number of voters who came in on election day.

“The variety of people who came in to vote surprised me as well,” Behlen said. “I was also surprised at how many laws there are about voting.”

Bundick and Behlen both said the experience gave them confidence in Fayette County’s elections.

“I didn’t see a problem with anything,” Bundick said. “The precautions we took to make sure everything is safe and secure – if there was any voting fraud, if the machine says you’ve already voted and you’re not supposed to be there, we’d ask you nicely to leave.”

“We had to take an oath,” Behlen said. “We had to take so many precautionary measures just to be able to sit down behind the desk. It gave me a lot of confidence in how secure the ballots are.”

The two young men said Election Day voting went very smoothly at City Hall. Bundick said the biggest excitement came from his mom, who visited the polling place to check on him several times throughout the day. “I met a lot of great people,” Bundick said. “The election judges, Bill Bishop and Linda Diers, they were great. I loved talking to them and learning about elections.”

“I thoroughly enjoyed it,” Behlen said. “It gave me a lot of experience about how elections work and what goes on behind the scenes and not what everybody sees.”