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November 4, 2012

Hill, Lambert keep polling location running smoothly

By MATT CHRISTIAN Princeton Times

PRINCETON — More than 2,300 Mercer County residents have been able to exercise their right to vote early, thanks to the team of Marie Hill and Kathy Lambert.

Hill said that she works with the office end of voting and Lambert makes sure the machines are functioning properly. On Wednesday morning, their operation seems to be functioning very well. Although, the basement hallway of the Mercer County Courthouse is full of voters, Hill and Lambert took a few minutes to explain their roles.

“It’s a good sign,” Hill said of the voters lining the hallway. “The turnout is definitely up this year, as compared to 2008. We’re averaging over 450 people per day.”

Hill added that they had already mailed over 600 absentee ballots. They’ve also been emailing military members their ballots.

Once a voter walks in the door, Hill takes over. First, she locates the person in the county computer system.

“If someone hasn’t voted in two general elections, they get cancelled out,” Hill said. “They have to file a provisional ballot.”

Once Hill looks them up and crosses their name off of the county rolls to avoid re-voting, Hill sends them to a polling station. That’s when Lambert’s job comes in.

Lambert makes sure that the machines are correctly counting the ballots. This means before every election, she and the rest of the voter registration team have to file ballots of various scenarios before sending each machine to its precinct.

Both women have voted early. For them, election day is too stressful to have to worry about finding the time to vote.

It’s stressful because when something goes wrong with one of the machines stationed across the county, they have to go out. That could be as far away as a polling station near McComas or near Kelly’s Tank just across the border from Glen Lyn, Va.

Lambert, in particular, wishes that everyone would vote early. She said it would save a lot of time and aggravation at the polls on Nov. 6.

Hill is just happy to see people exercising their right to vote.

“Everyone should vote,” she said.

— Contact Matt Christian at mchristian@ptonline.net.

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