I Worked the Polls in Trump Country — and Left More Confused Than Ever

There aren’t a lot of Democrats up here, which is why I got the job

Aaron Gell
GEN
Published in
6 min readNov 4, 2020

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Photo illustration; source: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

I didn’t check the box volunteering to be an “election inspector,” as poll workers in New York state are called, just to have an excuse to stay off my phone on November 3. That would be the bonus. I did it to be civic-minded. To…

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Aaron Gell
GEN
Writer for

Medium editor-at-large, with bylines in the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, the New York Times and numerous other publications. ¶ aarongell.com