I volunteered as a polling agent for #GE2020 ! Here’s a thread of my experience

To start off, I’ll talk about the different roles inside the polling station. There’s the assistant returning officer, which I conclude is the highest in authority, followed by the senior presiding officer, presiding officers, general helpers, and polling agents.

From what I understand, presiding officers are civil servants and thus expected to be politically neutral. There are also polling agents (aka me), that represent a party.

I volunteered with the Workers’ Party, hence I was instructed to wear a blue t shirt not bearing any logos. There was one other WP volunteer with me, and 2 PAP volunteers in white.

According to @kixes the maximum number of polling agents per party station is 3. However, a close friend who volunteered at another bigger polling station nearby said that there were 4 PAP volunteers.

my role was a WP polling agent was to ensure no foul play during the voting process, and to bear witness on behalf of the party should anything unusual happen. That being said, for the duration I was there, I did mostly nothing but observe

So I went relatively empty handed. The PAP volunteers on the other hand, came with a folio with a huge stack of documents, a pencil and a ruler. I later realized that it was a namelist of everyone who was supposed to vote at my station when they struck off names accordingly

I thought it was weird, since voters were registered electronically anyway. Not really sure why they did it, but after reading that it was an intimidation tactic, I couldn’t help but to scoff. That being said, I have not voted yet so maybe the fear they evoke is not irrational

I am finally getting to my point (sorry!) for the whole campaigning period, I have not fully comprehended why people say it’s a bad time to call for elections during a pandemic. After today’s experience, yes, it definitely is.

To verify your identity, you’ll have to remove your mask. For many who are less properly trained, this means your hands coming into contact with the outside of your mask, aka the barrier that blocks out germs from your face. I could hear the fear in some of the elderly’s voices -

when they clarified if they really have to take off their mask. But it was part of the procedure so they had to do it anyway. Many were careful when handling their masks though.

However, safe distancing measures were not always observed. The lady at the desk closest to me allowed two people to share the desk at a time, such as beckoning a voter forward when another voter is still fumbling around keeping their cards

Another thing I noticed was how bad??? Or poorly equipped these civil servants were when interacting with the elderly/people who are differently abled. In my mind I was thinking, have you really not volunteered with the elderly before???

one presiding officer tried to hand something to a wheelchair-bound lady from the back, aka she had to twist her entire body to receive the items from him

At the start when gloves were still mandatory, the SOP was to spray hand sanitizer and then immediately wear gloves. Many of the elderly struggled to wear the gloves, and the wet hands from the hand sanitizer made things even harder. One uncle got so impatient he lowkey gave up

I’m not sure whether it’s not intuitive or maybe it’s too early, but at the start of the day, the officers there just sat there watching as the elderly struggled to put on the gloves. They slowly caught on and began assisting them more by opening up the gloves for them

I suppose they were trying to make the procedures more efficient, but there was one officer who would give instructions quickly, while handing/requesting things from voters

Within a span of 30 seconds, she would request for the polling card and IC, ask the voter to sanitize their hand, wear gloves (which usually takes up to a minute!!!) but while the voter is still struggling to wear gloves she would hand the items back to them, while directing them

To the next station (at this point the voter usually hasn’t even successfully worn the gloves yet, let alone receive the ballot card and look at where to head to next) My point is, I expected a little more patience or empathy from the staff, especially when the time slot is -

- reserved for the elderly. One uncle was visually impaired, and the officer at the entrance notified the officer inside but somehow the officer inside couldn’t hear?? forgot??? And just let the uncle stumble around the station unguided

Of course, for these instances which occurred in front of me, I did my best to help, but for things that were happening further inside the balloting station I couldn’t and shouldn’t cross my boundaries

Another thing I noticed, and idk if it’s just a feeling, was a slight feeling of judgement?? Being ostracized??? Not sure whether it’s because of the color of our attire, but I felt somewhat othered and outnumbered

The same goes for my friend at the other station, where she was with 4 PAP volunteers instead of the 2 I had. She also felt slightly side-eyed, and that the officers at the station were chummy with the PAP volunteers while behaving cautiously around us.

at my friend’s station, the officers would repeat the serial numbers if the PAP volunteers couldn’t catch them the first time round (they’re not supposed to!) Didn’t happen for mine, but maybe because my station was a smaller one.

That being said, my gleaming beacon of hope aka @jamuslim CAME THROUGH and came in person!!! To deliver nasi lemak!!! At around 1pm!! I was so shocked and delighted and touched at the same time. I also felt that the rest of the people were watching the two of us WP volunteers -

with a little bit of envy and a little bit of disgust (idk) just assuming. Anyway I had quite a good time not really doing anything(???) essentially just people watching for 6.5 hours and made some ~ observations ~

in conclusion - 1) Jamus displayed true ~ servant leadership ~ (he addressed us volunteers by name!!!) and 2) what is that stack of documents PAP polling agents are holding, how did they get those papers and what purpose do they serve?

3) maybe it’s really not the time to hold elections and 4) we can all do a little bit more to accommodate the elderly/differently abled and 5) I hope WP wins Sengkang thanks for coming to my ted talk