Election 2020: Coffee Spills, Free Pens, Masks And Absentees

CONNECTICUT — With coffee spills causing delays, free pens, mountains of absentee ballots, socially distanced voting booths, cleaning crews and masks, the 2020 election was unlike any other in recent and distant memory.

"It was a lot different than any other I have worked," said a veteran moderator in Vernon.

And the coffee incident, er, took the cake, she said. It caused a delay of about 30 minutes at one polling place in Vernon.

According to moderators, a voter walked in wearing a mask with a cup of coffee. The coffee accidentally spilled on the voter's ballot and the counting machine jammed after the voter inserted the wet — and now brown — ballot into the counting machine.

The line inside the polling place — Skinner Road School — quickly wrapped itself around the gym. The registrars received a thunderous ovation from voters when they arrived with a new machine.

Many of the unique aspects of Tuesday's voting were related to the climate created by the coronavirus pandemic..

Take the pens, for example. Normally, a voter checks in with the proper identification, accepts a ballot, walks over to a voting booth, gets tangled in the string holding the marker to the table (that's inevitably too short for left-handers) and puts the marker back. On Tuesday, a box of free pens greeted voters at most polling places, the idea being not to share pens during the pandemic.

"May I take a picture of the pens," a voter asked a checker at a polling place Tuesday.

"What's so special about the pens?" the checker asked.

"Well, they're free pens and it's history," the voter explained.

Aside from the individual pens, booths were designed to be socially distant and cleaning crews were at the ready to prepare them for the next voter.

Masks were also required, but they had to be devoid of endorsements. It is the T-shirt rule "re-interpreted, one moderator said.

The moderator pointed out that apparel cannot "physically endorse" any particular candidate within 75 feet of a polling place, especially inside the polling place. During the pandemic, the rule was "re-interpreted" to include masks, she said.

Things like generic elephant or donkey party symbols are fine, but no candidate images or names are allowed on the masks while voting, the moderator said.

The uniqueness was wasn't just reserved for Tuesday, but weeks ahead as many voters opted for absentee ballots rather than head to a polling place amid a pandemic.

That means mountains of absentee ballots that needed to be counted on Tuesday. Special rooms were set up in many towns with roped off areas to separate the counters from the public, but also give voters a chance to observe the process.

Moderators said they did have a few cases of voters "forgetting' they filed an absentee ballot and showing up to the polls.