She’s seen a lot in 40 years at the polls

There was a time when going to the polls on election day was as much about attending a community gathering as it was performing a civic duty, Jennie Greisch said.

The poll workers would set out a spread of food and greet their neighbors when they came in to cast their ballots, she said.

“People would help themselves,” said Greisch, a poll worker for the Town of Port Washington. “You knew a lot of the people — we didn’t have all these subdivisions then —  and you got a lot of good recipes.”

Greisch, who has been a poll worker for about 40 years, said she was recruited to work at the elections.

She and her late husband Jim always voted, she said, and one day a poll worker told her they needed people like her.

“It was mostly the farm ladies,” Greisch said of her fellow poll workers. 

And turnout, she said, was good.

“I think everybody pretty well voted,” she said.

She stuck with it, Greisch said, because it was something she could do for her community.

“I enjoy it,” she said. “If I’m not there, people ask me, ‘Where were you?’”

Greisch has seen a lot during her tenure, which has spanned five town clerks — Katherine “Kitchie” Allen, Susan Westerbeke, Jenny Schlenvogt, Cheryl Karrels and current Clerk Heather Krueger.

There have been plenty of changes in elections during her four decades on the job, Greisch said.

One of the biggest is the acrimony in today’s politics, she said.

“It wasn’t so divided,” Greisch said, adding she believes the tenor of political ads spurs much of that division and turns people off. 

But most of the changes are smaller and less noticeable to people.

“Back then, we didn’t have all the paperwork we do now,”Greisch said. “When they asked me to help, I came in and sat down and did what they told me. Now we have training.”

People came in and were greeted by name, Greisch said, unlike today when poll workers have to wait for voters to tell them their names.

That doesn’t sit right with her.

“I like the idea that when they come to the polls, I greet them,” Greisch said, adding she would have the poll book open to their name before they got to her desk. “Now you really have to watch what you say.”

Voters were checked in and given a poker chip back then, she said. They deposited the chip in a basket, and poll workers counted them to determine how many people came to the polls, checking that number against the number of ballots cast.

“Now we have a signed slip of paper,” Greisch said. 

Unlike today, when ballots are fed into tabulating machines, voters then dropped their ballots into two barrels at the Town Hall, Greisch said.

At the end of the night, the poll workers would take the ballots to the courthouse.

“We would rush to see who got there first,” she said, noting there was a competition of sorts between the various municipalities to see who would get there first “so we didn’t have to stand in line.”

The poll workers would then count the ballots by hand at the courthouse, she said.

She recalled one election for town clerk that ended in a tie. County Clerk Harold Dobberpuhl had them count the ballots a second time, and when they confirmed the tie Dobberpuhl was called on to pick the winner, Greisch said.

She recalled a special election with only one name on the ballot. There were three poll workers on hand but only a few people voted.

“We were so bored,” she said. “I think we solved a lot of problems that day — or maybe we created a lot.”

One thing that hasn’t changed, she said, is the race to be first to vote.

“It’s a big deal to vote No. 1,” Greisch said “There’s always a group waiting to go first.“

Many, she said, are people who have to get to work, and some bring their children along to expose them to voting.

“Once in a while, when there was a tight election, people would come in and see how it came out,” she added.

Greisch said that she’s committed to working the polls and serving her community.

“I enjoy it,” she said. “And I get to know a lot of people that way.”