Longtime Sonoma County poll worker expects Election Day turnout to be ‘yuge’

Today marks Melanie Griffin’s 22nd election as a Sonoma County poll worker.

The 53-year-old Rohnert Park resident will be one of the almost 1,000 poll volunteers scattered throughout Sonoma County’s 194 polling places. Today you’ll find her at the Rohnert Park Community Center.

Griffin moved to Sonoma County at the age of 10 and for the most part, has lived in the county since then. She first reached out to the Sonoma County Registrar of Voters in 2000 to see if they might need any help.

“I was raised that you give back to the community,” she said. “I think I got it from both of my parents, but especially my mother.”

The self-described “political nerd” remembers being a little girl and helping her mother stuff envelopes for George McGovern during his presidential campaign in 1972.

Her mother, too, took her to Sacramento to march for the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s.

“It’s just a family value that was passed down from my parents,” she said.

Griffin said she always loves working presidential elections, but expects today to likely be a little bit more boisterous than usual.

“I’m sure this one is going to be, as one of the candidates would say, yuge,” she said. “I’m excited.”

She’s not worried about voter fraud (“Do you know the hoops they would have to jump through?”). But she is concerned that because of the passion this election season has brought out in people, there might be voters who show up to their polling place in shirts, hats, pins, etc., touting their voting preferences. It is illegal to wear such an item to a polling place because it can be seen as voter intimidation or coercion.

“My concern is that people will be so passionate about it that they might get in my face, and I’m not there to get in a fight,” she said. “So I’ll let them come in, and let them vote, but I’m going to keep my eye on them. It screws up the emotions in the polling place for people who might feel imposed on, or not in total agreement, and the next thing you know, you have an intimidating polling place.

“I want people to be excited about voting and who they’re voting for.”

Griffin, a secretary in the Sonoma County Juvenile Probation Department, has become such a “political nerd” that she headed back to college and is currently taking a political science course.

“I like getting people in there to vote,” she said. “I like explaining the process to people. If we’re going to keep things moving forward, then people have to be educated about what the process is and why we go through it.”

One of her favorite memories comes from her first time working a presidential general election. It was Nov. 7, 2000, and she was stationed at a polling place in Petaluma.

Two recent citizens from, Griffin thinks, Russia, came in absolutely thrilled about getting to vote for the first time.

The mother, who was in her 80s, couldn’t speak English at all. But her son, who was in his 60s, could speak just enough that he could communicate. And they wanted to be dead sure that they weren’t about to mess up their first-ever chance to vote.

They weren’t sure how to mark a ballot, so Griffin pulled out a thick pad of demonstration squares and showed them how to fill in the bubbles.

“That is maybe the only time I’ve ever pulled those out,” she said. “And they actually did that before they went in to vote.”

When she gave them their “I Voted” stickers, they were crying.

“That’s why I do it.”