For those voting at Brandon Central Services in Columbus Tuesday, Lee Burdine may be the first face they see when they arrive at their polling place.
Burdine, a local business owner and South Carolina native, will be standing at the door ready to greet voters, hand them stylus pens to use to cast their vote — new this year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic — and answer their questions.
He will arrive at the spot at 6 a.m. to help set up the voting machines and sign-in tables. He won’t leave until well after polls close at 7 p.m., when he’ll ensure everyone who was in line by that time still gets to vote, and then he and the other poll workers will check the poll books against the results in voting machines and make sure the number of voters’ signatures matches the number of ballots cast.
It makes for a long day, he said.
“You bring your lunch, you talk your spouse into bringing you coffee,” he said.
Burdine moved to Columbus in 1988 and opened his business, BHS (Burdine Health Services, though someone started calling it “Blood Pressure Health Stations” a few years ago and the nickname stuck) in the 1990s. The company furnishes and operates blood pressure testing machines set up in pharmacies and workplaces — such as Paccar and Tronox — throughout Mississippi, Alabama and the Memphis area. The machine makes it easy for patients or employees to test their blood pressure, freeing up nurses and doctors and reminding patients to keep taking their blood pressure medication. It’s a service that’s been particularly helpful since the pandemic began, Burdine said, since people are both more health-conscious and more stressed.
Even before Burdine started BHS, he was in the “blood pressure health station” business. Working the polls is a much more recent pastime.
“I actually heard (Lowndes County Circuit Clerk) Teresa Barksdale speak about the need for poll workers,” he said. “So I thought that’d be something to kind of experience. I didn’t think it would be one of those things where you kind of get in it and stay in it, but … it turns out once you do get in it, you stay in it.”
Burdine is a bailiff, someone whose job is to help coordinate voters coming into the polling place.
“There may be a question about whether somebody’s at the right poll,” he said. “They may have moved, but they still have their registration somewhere else. So you just help them on that.
“Everybody’s kind of friendly,” he added. “You don’t do much bailiff-ing.”
Though Tuesday is his first presidential election as a poll worker, Burdine’s worked some major elections in the past, including last year’s governor race between Gov. Tate Reeves and his Democratic opponent Jim Hood, as well as the special election of Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith versus Democrat Mike Espy and Sen. Roger Wicker versus David Baria in 2018.
“That created a higher-than-usual turnout,” he said.
Still, he said, Tuesday’s election is shaping up to be one of the biggest ever.
Not only will more people turn up to vote, but the poll workers will be decked out in masks and face shields to protect themselves and the voters from the virus.
Luckily, Burdine said, the interest in this year’s election has resulted in many new poll workers to lend a hand.
“It’s a pretty big commitment to take 12, 14 hours … to help run an election,” he said. “Just at this one little spot, and it’s going on all over the state. Some of the poll workers, the ages vary. Some of them have been doing it for a decade or so or longer. It’s going to be good to get some extra help there.
“We’re faced with something we’ve never done,” he added. “We’re wearing a mask all day and face shields. You may need a (few) extra breaks, so you have extra people that can help relieve you.”
Burdine said he’s not too worried that people will be belligerent about mask-wearing or about their candidates versus their candidates’ opponents. People in Lowndes County are usually friendly, and not only do they take voting seriously, but they use election day as an opportunity to see old friends or neighbors and catch up — though, he admitted, there may be less of that this year, thanks to the virus.
“Really the best part is you see all kinds of people,” he said. “Some people I’ve known for a long time … and it’s gotten to the point now where I only see them here. It’s become sort of a tradition.”
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