City poll workers are devoted to democracy

BALBOA ISLAND ? By now we’ve all heard about voter fatigue, but poll-worker fatigue? Not at this polling place.

“I’ve worked every general election since [Ronald] Reagan was president,” said Ellis Morcos, 79, inspector of the polls at the Balboa Island fire station.

And he’s been put to work a lot more often lately ? the station has been open for voting five times in the last eight months.

He and four colleagues were working the island’s polling place Tuesday. A steady stream of voters came in the afternoon, about one or two at a time every 10 minutes, and by about 3:30 p.m. the total number of voters using the machines was 168. Some stopped in to drop off absentee ballots.

On election days Morcos gets up at 5 a.m. ? luckily he lives next door ? to set up the voting machines and get the polling station ready to open. The polls don’t close until 8 p.m. and then he has to pack up everything, so it makes for a long day. Poll workers are paid between $50 and $70 for the day’s work.

But for Morcos, offering his time fits with his motto as a rotary club member, “service above self.” He works elections, he’s vice president of the Balboa Island Improvement Assn., and he helps out with the island’s annual parade, where last weekend he was honored as volunteer of the year.

“That’s part of me. I just do it ? I guess because nobody else wants to do it,” he said.

He and the four ladies working Tuesday all live on the island, so they get to chat with friends and neighbors as they work.

“It’s really kind of fun. We see so many people,” Ruth McConville, 85, said.

She got started as an election worker about 10 years ago because “somebody called me and asked me, I guess. I thought it’d be fun.”

Poll worker Nanette Fisher said she wanted to see how the election process worked, so she volunteered.

It doesn’t get boring because different issues come up throughout the day, said Marjorie Yusem, 75.

Despite their devotion to democracy, the poll workers said they think officials should have combined the last election ? a special primary for the 35th District Senate seat ? with a later election, rather than offering voters a one-contest ballot on April 11.

“That election we had more negative comments about, because it was one issue, and [people had] election fatigue,” Yusem said.

Morcos said he thinks the long shifts and the recent surfeit of elections make it hard for the Orange County Registrar of Voters to find poll workers.

But if the elections keep coming, these poll workers will probably keep coming back ? though they may not mind a few months’ break.

“What are we going to do with our lives?” McConville joked. “No election till November!”