As we all know, elections have passed and helping is a great thing! Not to mention in highschool we do need community service hours. Luckily, senior students from Hughson High helped with election polls at various places! But during these polls, who helps us? Is it by choice? Do they even enjoy it or is it tiring? What do they do exactly?

Jasmin Lopez, a senior from Hughson High explained, “There’s two things you can do when volunteering, you can read, which is handing out clipboards with information inside before you go up and vote and you can operate the machines to print out the ballots and for scanning them in.” Lopez said, “I mainly did printing the ballots and basically I would get their ID from the information center and I would enter that into the system then they would go on and vote, afterwards I would help them scan out.” 

Lopez continued, “Sunday I worked 10 hours, 7:30-5:00 pm  and I worked Tuesday, election day 6:30-9:30.” “I was pretty ready to go to bed but as far as overwhelming it wasn’t too bad, I was working a lot but it was chill.” Lopez noted, “A lot of people think we do it because we get paid or we need volunteer hours to graduate but I did it to just do it,” “I didn’t even know I was going to get paid for it until I did volunteer for it.” “It is really good for people who can’t communicate that well, it really helps with communication skills.”

Let’s hear some other jobs and experiences from other senior volunteers! Where did they work? How long did they work for?

Emily Flora, a senior at Hughson High, informed, “My job was to get people started on the voting process. If they were voting in person or if people were just dropping off their ballots, I would show them where to drop their ballots off at. I also answered questions people might have about how everything works as well.” Flora added, “I worked 10 hours on Monday from 7:30-5:30 and then on Tuesday, I worked 15 ½ hours as I started at 6:30 in the morning and left at 10:00 at night,” “I worked at the hughson community center right here on main street!”

Flora shared her thoughts on her experience, “My experience overall was great! The other volunteers I worked with were super kind and helped me whenever I needed, I loved being able to see people I knew and I loved taking some time off school to learn more about things that I will soon be able to take part of as I get older!” Flora said, “I would absolutely do it again and encourage others to participate. I think it really helped me understand the whole process and just how important everyone’s voice is and I think that is a lesson everyone should know and grow to understand.” 

Flora concluded with her reasoning, “ I wanted to be an election volunteer because I have always heard people talk about elections and that your voice matters but I had never really thought about the process of it all and the significance of elections and voting. I simply wanted to know more about why we as people vote and do all of these acts in support of elections.”