By Ali Winston/OAKLAND

As voters flock to the polls in record numbers today, the basement of the Alameda County Courthouse is abuzz with election workers toiling to ensure a smooth and accurate election.

The Alameda County Registrar of Voters is responsible for staffing the polls, registering voters, troubleshooting problems at the polls and counting the ballots submitted by the county’s 804,061 registered voters.

Voters check in at the Registrar

“We are facilitators to help with the whole democratic process,” said Janet Peters, a supervising clerk. “Get ‘em in, let ‘em vote, get ‘em out.”

5,800 election workers are out working the polls, with seven polling workers assigned to each location.

November 4th is the climax of an election season that began on Oct. 6, when polls opened for early voting. More than 255,000 votes have been cast early, with a record 239,313 vote-by-mail ballots cast.

At the Registrar’s service windows, a steady trickle of voters requested their ballots and filled them out in booths to the side.

In the crowded back office, 20 election workers charged with troubleshooting election day problems manned five rows of workstations. They have been on duty since 6 a.m. to handle complaints ranging from absent ballot workers to pen shortages. Once polls opened around 7 a.m., the nature of the calls shifted to voter complaints. All complaints are logged into a software program and dealt with by election workers.

On the opposite side of the room, a separate station of seven workers checked in with the polling place inspectors. Throughout the day, the polling place inspectors will phone in reports on all 831 polling locations in Alameda County.

Once the last voters in line have cast their ballots this evening, each polling station will collect all their ballots, place the memory cards from scanners and touch screen machines in specially marked red bags, and send them by truck to return centers.

The votes are then trucked back to the Registrar’s Office. In a separate vote-counting room, bare shelves await the reams of ballots to be tallied this evening. At the doorway, special antennae are installed to detect and log the Radio-Frequency Identification Chips embedded in each red bag and memory card.

“Right away, we know if everything is in the bag as it should be,” said Peters. If any materials are missing, two election workers are dispatches to retrieve missing items.

Although work comes in spurts, by mid-morning fatigue was creeping into the workers’ faces.

“It’s been extremely stimulating and challenging, ” said Peters.

Unlike prior elections, there has been no shortage of poll workers. Gemma Ninechez-Arbas, an election technician and 18-year veteran, said more than 3,000 people applied online for temporary poll worker positions. “We had to tell them we didn’t have any openings,” she said. “Before, people were missing at the polls the day before the election.”

Ballots build up at the Alameda County Courthouse

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