Ledger-Dispatch

By Raheem Hosseini (editor@ledger-dispatch.com= )=20 - Jerry Budrick=20

The vintage ballot box in Amador City = has a key=20 attached by a rubber band for safekeeping.

Photo by: Jerry = Budrick

Precinct volunteers at Mt. Zion = Assembly of God=20 were among dozens of people who staffed 59 polling places = throughout=20 Amador County.

Photo by: Debbie Dunn

Frank Andrew Klith of Frank A's Pizza = in Ione,=20 with pizzeria worker Anna Meza, just prior to leaving to deliver = pizzas to=20 one of the five precincts in Amador County Supervisor Richard = Forster's=20 District 2. Each precinct receives two pizzas every election, = courtesy of=20 Forster.

Photo by: Jerry = Budrick

Voters in Volcano turned out to this = historic=20 building on Tuesday.

Photo by: Debbie = Dunn
Even=20 before the numbers were set to arrive, George Allen was predicting a = huge=20 turnout.

At the board of supervisors meeting on election morning, = the=20 chief deputy registrar for the Amador County Elections Office was = estimating 80=20 percent of the county's registered voters would turn out to the polls. = He=20 needn't have been so conservative.

By the close of polls 8 p.m. = Tuesday,=20 nearly 83 percent of Amador's 21,462 had participated in an historic = Election=20 Day. A whopping 11,170 voters had requested to vote by mail.

At = first, it=20 seemed like Ione's Evalynn Bishop Hall precinct inspector Dolores = Larrigan's 35=20 years of experience as a polling place worker would set the county = record at=20 Tuesday's election. As it turned out, Larrigan didn't even hold the = record in=20 the hall, eclipsed by fellow inspector Carolyn Fisher's 48 years of = guarding=20 ballot boxes. The complexity of running an election came occasionally to = the=20 fore, as voters arrived at the precinct who had tried elsewhere to find = their=20 names on a registration list, or had been lost in the system=20 somewhere.

Lunch rush

By noon on Election Day, the = Jackson=20 Civic Center had already seen a strong turnout with 236 voters logged = and the=20 lunch rush just arriving.

"The voter participation has been very = nice so=20 far," said polling volunteer Chris Molinelli. "There was a line when we = opened=20 the doors in the morning and we've had a steady stream since then."=20

Molinelli's son, Paul, was also a volunteer at the civic center. = As the=20 hour rolled on, the two found themselves helping resident Scott Smith = figure out=20 where he was supposed to vote. Smith, who'd been steered away from two = other=20 polling locations due to confusion over what precinct he belonged in, = was given=20 a provisional ballot by Molinelli.

"I want my vote to be counted = today=20 with everyone else's," Smith insisted.

According to Allen, = provisional=20 ballots are counted at the end of the election process. "If someone = shows up to=20 vote and isn't in the precinct's index roster, then they're given a = provisional=20 ballot," he explained. "We have to run checks on each provisional ballot = to make=20 sure someone is not getting to vote twice, therefore they have to be = counted=20 last."

Allen added that if anyone who cast a provisional ballot = was=20 worried about when or if it had been counted, they could call the = election's=20 office to find out.

One of the last voters to come through the = civic=20 center during lunchtime was Sally Crocker. A 19-year resident of Amador = County,=20 Crocker had carefully planned her list of chores for the day in a way = that would=20 ensure her chance to cast her ballot. "I think every election is = important," she=20 said. "We're lucky because Jackon and the rest of the county have very = efficeint=20 polling places. I really appreciate all the work these volunteers do for = us and=20 I really appreciate living in a country where you have the right to vote = and be=20 heard."

Amador County District 2 Supervisor Richard Forster knows = that=20 the way to an election worker's heart is through the stomach. Every = year, since=20 he was elected in 2000, Forster has had pizzas delivered to each of the = five=20 precincts in his district.

"Supervisor Forster always buys = pizzas," said=20 Kathleen Vicini, who was working at the Amador City City Hall, greeting = voters=20 from the Willow Creek area. Vicini's partner at the desk, Paul = Rodriguez,=20 reminisced, "(Former District 2 Supervisor Tom) Bamert used to bring us=20 doughnuts, which arrived earlier." Apparently, Frank A's pizzas have = displayed a=20 habit of arriving around two in the afternoon.

"Frank A" himself, = Frank=20 Andrew Klith, makes and delivers all of the pizzas himself, aided in the = task=20 this election by Anna Meza.

This has been a good year for polling = place=20 pizzas, Tuesday's election being the third this year. Five precincts = were=20 blessed with pizza this Tuesday. Amador City got one large Foothill = Combo and=20 one half-pepperoni, half-cheese.

Turning out

By = 2:30 p.m.,=20 a little more than 180 people had already voted at a small precinct = inside a=20 Sutter Creek mobile home community for residents 55 and older. Turnout = had been=20 high all day at Sutter Terrace, with the first voter showing up at 6 = a.m., a=20 full hour before the precinct opened.

"It's the heaviest I've = seen in a=20 number of years," said Ben Klotz, who's been volunteering his election = Tuesdays=20 for about 10 years. "We've seen more young people with young = kids."

One=20 of those voters was Donna Barnes, who brought her two young children, = William=20 and Lydia, with her to the precinct. A Colorado transplant who was = voting in=20 Sutter Creek for her first time, she said she found this election = "frustrating,=20 more than anything." Worried about the direction of the country and the=20 potential impact of some of the statewide propositions, Barnes said two=20 initiatives in particular weighed on her and her husband's minds. With = two older=20 daughters, she supported Proposition 4, which would require parental=20 notification of underage girls seeking abortions, and Proposition 8, the = gay=20 marriage ban, "because we believe in the Bible."

Back inside, one = woman=20 was dismayed to find her name absent from the voter rolls and went home = to=20 retrieve her sample ballot to prove she was registered at the Sutter = Terrace=20 precinct.

Irregularities like these are rare, Klotz said, and = more often=20 involve voters who didn't receive their mail-in ballots. In such cases, = voters=20 are permitted to cast provisional ballots.

One of the volunteers, = Sally=20 Trestrail of the Progressive Women's Committee, was disturbed to hear = about=20 another sort of irregularity. She and Democratic Central Committee Judy=20 Hotchkiss contacted the Ledger Dispatch about a robocall from the Yes on = Prop. 8=20 campaign, one using a snippet of a Sen. Barack Obama speech to urge = voters to=20 support the same-gender marriage ban. Both Trestrail and Hotchkiss had = received=20 the robocall themselves and ignored them. At least one older voter = confessed at=20 the Democratic Central Committee headquarters to being "fooled" into = voting for=20 Prop. 8 after hearing Obama's voice, Hotchkiss said.

Predictably = high=20 voter turnout, even by Amador County's stiff standards, left some = precinct=20 volunteers bleary-eyed but satisfied with the results.

"It's been = busy -=20 very, very busy," said Sue Lucke, volunteering at the American Legion = Hall=20 precinct in Martell. With about 20 minutes to go before the polls were = set to=20 close, Lucke's precinct had seen turnout edging north of 90 percent from = those=20 not registered to vote by mail.

Lucke and her husband, fellow = volunteer=20 Jay, used words like "emotion" and "passion" to describe the mood among = voters,=20 a group fellow volunteer Lisa Phillips Sue said included "a lot of = people we'd=20 never seen before, a lot of first-time voters."

As the weary, = smiling=20 crew of volunteers - many of whom are Election Day staples at the = popular=20 Martell precinct with its 964 registered voters - counted down the = minutes to 8=20 p.m., Sue Lucke remarked that it was the young and first-time voters = that=20 brought out her mothering instinct. Vote in every election, she urges = them,=20 because their participation can make a difference. That's especially = true in=20 local races, she said, which can be decided by a few votes, as is = happening in=20 Jackson and Plymouth.

"We've seen it," her husband=20 agreed.

Scott Thomas Anderson contributed to this = report.

Raheem = Hosseini