memfree
The vast army of Georgia poll workers report for duty only about three days a year and get paid about $7.25 an hour. Every time we come in, the rules have changed, so we train for eight hours to learn the new protocols. Election day itself, including set-up and break-down, starts at 5:30 am and ends at 9:00 pm, two hours later if you’re a manager delivering the ballots to the regional office. Most of us are retired, and many are elderly (read: not tech-forward).
And poll workers are not perfect. One of them puts on a sweater and inadvertently obscures her name tag (not allowed). Another shows a new person how to work the check-in station (not allowed). Another tells a nonprofit they can set up their food hand-outs inside the building so as to stay out of the rain (not allowed). And at some point during the 15 hour work day, all of you find yourself accidentally socializing with one another (also not allowed). Likewise, the clerks are socializing with the voters (you guessed it: not allowed), which, worst case, is akin to being smothered in grandmas.
This sounds very like my experience back when I used to work the polls. We all did the best we could and we all knew a fair chunk of the voters, so chatting was frequent.
I believe the main issue is that it doesn’t get ‘clicks’ these days because everyone already knows about it. “Dog bites man” doesn’t get as many clicks as “Man bites dog” and all that. Still, a quick search brought up a couple articles from the last 12 months that weren’t stifled:
- https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/produced-water-midland-pollution-18561991.php
- https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/31/texas-oil-gas-fracking-wastewater-spills-railroad-commission/
- https://www.cleveland.com/open/2024/05/fracking-waste-wells-owned-by-an-ohio-senator-are-leaking-the-state-paid-13-million-to-clean-it-up.html
- https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2024/04/30/athens-co-fracking-leak-inaction-show-the-dire-public-health-dangers-of-ohio-regulatory-capture/
- https://www.denver7.com/news/front-range/erie/an-erie-oil-well-surrounded-by-homes-leaked-toxic-chemicals-as-cleanup-continues-neighbors-fear-health-risks
- https://www.alleghenyfront.org/rager-mountain-equitrans-gas-leak-fine/
It’s because of the electoral college. Most states give all their electoral college votes to whomever wins the state rather than dividing the votes equitably. This means Pennsylvania – a swing state – will go either all-red or all-blue. The state has a lot of fracking, and a lot of people making money off it, so Democrats are trying to appease pro-fracking to get votes.
The people getting harmed by fracking are stuck without anyone on their ‘side’, but will presumably be more likely to vote blue because that side favors more regulation and pro-environment stuff. Note that all Harris said was she wouldn’t ban fracking. She didn’t say she wouldn’t make it difficult to do. My guess is any attempts to make it cleaner will get crushed by Congress and the Corrupted Supreme Court that has sided against Unions, workers, citizens, and the planet – all to favor of their sugar daddies. So even if the next President wants to do something about fracking, it would be a hard to actually do anything.
This should be addressed by fixing the software, but it seems to be easier or cheaper to instead further burden the workers.
Does this archive version render any better for you? https://archive.ph/xIOUo
