There is so much I stress about during union election season, but sometimes the most stressful thing is waiting while ballots are being counted to see the results. I usually end up having a very late night to see the end of the ballot counting and sometimes I’m so exhausted that things don’t click with me until the next morning. And this year, I knew watching the ballots being counted would be a different thing than normal since it was being done over Zoom.
There were pros and cons to the counting being done online. I didn’t like that I was at home alone watching everything and I didn’t have my friends there to reassure me or to joke with while we wait for everything to be done. But the biggest advantage was that I got to watch while I was working because I could keep the Zoom screen small on my screen while I’m working. I actually was able to watch from almost the start when the ballots were picked up from the post office and brought over to the union. I know it doesn’t sound exciting, but it was cool to see since it’s something I’ve never been an observer for in the past.
I wasn’t able to watch all of the counting process because I was working from 9-5. When I could check the screen, I did. And when people were asking questions on Zoom about the process, I listened. But for those 8 hours, I mainly worked with the occasional check-in on the process. I was also texting and messaging with friends who were watching the entire time.
For all the times in the past that I was an observer for the ballot counting, I was only in the local count room. I was automatically allowed in there because I was on the local ballot (which includes National Board, Local Board, and Delegates). The national count room was for the national president and secretary-treasurer, and to be allowed in that room you had to either be a candidate or listed as a proxy for a candidate. This year, I knew I’d be watching in the local room since that’s the standard for me. But I was selected to be a proxy for one of our candidates in the national room so I was able to be in both (not at the same time, but I switched back and forth).
When I was able to watch, I did try to pay attention to how the ballots were looking to me. The local ballots were harder since there are so many candidates, so I could never tell if someone was voting for me. But on the national ballots, it was easy to see what was happening. And things were looking very close to me. I started to think it might be a split ballot with one slate getting president and the other getting secretary-treasurer. I wasn’t sure if we’d have a very late night or not, but we ended up getting the national results pretty early compared to past years. And I was right, we had a split ballot with Fran Drescher and Joely Fisher winning.
After we knew the results for the national count, we had to wait until the union announced it before we shared the news, but that was easier to do since I wasn’t seeing anyone in person. I switched back to the local count room to see how things were going and to watch the end of those results. When I was back watching the local count, the election committee was working on the questionable ballots and trying to figure out the voter’s intent. Some of these were clear and some were really odd. It’s frustrating when you think that they are voting for the people you are supporting and the election committee can’t agree on what the intent was. I did see the committee debate a few times about votes that they had to decide if the intent was to vote for me or someone else. That was a bit weird.
And in the end, sadly my slate didn’t do as well as we hoped. We didn’t win the local officers and we didn’t get as many board seats as we would have liked. I didn’t get elected to Local Board, which was tough. I knew that it was not going to be easy for me to be elected to the board, but I really had hoped that somehow I would win a seat. But I did win my delegate seat again, so that was good news.
It’s always tough when you don’t do as well in an election as you hoped. And this time, it hit me harder than ever before. Maybe it’s because I did more work for the campaign than in past years. Maybe feelings from the pandemic added to my emotions. Maybe I was affected by watching the count alone at home more than I thought. It doesn’t really matter why, but I honestly was heartbroken when seeing the results. I know that we can’t win everything and having balance is important, but the other side has a significant majority now and it will be harder for us to make an impact in the way we had hoped.
I think I’m still dealing with feeling sad about the results. I know that now it’s time to get back to work and we have to start preparing for the National Convention, but I also need to sit with my feelings and process what happened. The one thing that does help me feel better is that I don’t have any regrets about what I did during this election season. There is nothing I didn’t do that I wanted to do. There is nothing I did that I questioned. I did everything I wanted to do and knowing that I did that made me happy.
And in 2 years when it’s the next election season, I know I’ll be fully in it again and ready to go. And hopefully we will do better then, but now we are just focused on our union service and working hard for all members.
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