Election workers in for the long haul

Nancy Mousel, left, who has worked election polls for 32 years, demonstrates with Red Willow County Clerk Paulette Gerver how the electronic voting machine works at the courthouse. (Lorri Sughroue/McCook Daily Gazette)

The year was 1978. A gallon of gas was 63 cents, the Sony Walkman was introduced and the Fleetwood Mac album, "Rumours," was flying off the shelves.

It was also the year when Nancy Mousel, then a stay-at-home mom with two young kids, acted on a suggestion by a friend and worked for the first time at an election.

Now, 32 years later, she's one of about a dozen women in Red Willow County who have worked election polls for more than 25 years.

On the May 11 primary, Mousel will join about 9,000 others across the state who will put in 10 to 12-hour shifts at polling places, checking names, verifying addresses and handing out ballots.

"I loved it," she said of her years as a poll worker. "I got to see all the neighbors and we always had the best food."

But it wasn't all fun and games through the years. Electronic voting machines were not used in Red Willow County until 2006 and so before that, ballots had to be hand-counted, with election nights sometimes lasting until the early morning hours.

Luckily, Mousel never had to count ballots but she still remembers those who did. "You think how it used to be, counting until two in the morning," Mousel recalled.

For Mousel, she'll take her seat this May at the same precinct she's been at since she started, at Our Saviors Lutheran Church. After all these years, why does she keep doing it?

"We do it for the big bucks," she joked at first, referring to the minimum wage paid to election workers. But reflecting again, Mousel said for her, it comes down to a sense of commitment and "doing your part."

"After all this time, people begin to count on you to do it," she said. "I don't want to let people down."

Also, the act of voting itself is important to Mousel. "This is what people die for," she said. "I think of the people of Iraq, who finally got the right to vote and were so proud to do so. We sometimes take voting for granted, like we do many things."

A self-professed "people person," Mousel is an avid volunteer for many non-profit agencies in the community and also works on the canvassing board, that verifies the ballots after an election.

It's a long day working the polls but the people she works with make it fun, she said. Still, it's not a job she takes lightly.

"We may chit chat and have fun, but we take it very seriously," she said "People are trusting us to handle their ballot properly, so it's a big responsibility."