By ROBERT STEWART
SMITH ISLAND, Md.–Election Day will be a long day’s work for Election Judge Laura Evans. Her job is to help relay election results from her island home in the Chesapeake Bay to the mainland by the end of the night.
But she’s more than happy to embrace that duty, now that she and her neighbors have won back the privilege they deeply cherish – the right to have a precinct located on their island and to cast a vote amidst the 200 people they call neighbors.
“We are very thankful to the Lord that we got everything reinstated,” said Evans. “We have a great team now and just a lot of positive energy.”
The 2020 election was clouded with discontent and complaints about voter suppression after county election officials decided to remove the island’s in-person voting station. While disgruntled residents alleged nefarious motives, the official story is different.
Somerset County Election Director Julia Cox said they dispensed with in-person voting on the island because of COVID. But people were still able to drop off a mail-in vote on the island or travel to the mainland for in-person voting.
Still, everyone was disappointed by the loss, said Evans. Smith Island, once home to around 800 people, has wrestled with population decline and sea-level rising for decades. Voters on the small island cluster of three villages said they take voting very seriously, an attitude reinforced by memories of local tradition and folklore.
This year, though, county election officials have given Smith Island back its local polling place. It will be at the Ewell Elementary School, where island residents used to send their K-7th grade kids before the school shut down due to a lack of pupils.
The return of in-person voting feels like a victory, especially in the final days running up to the election.
Mark Kitching, 63, said that when he was a kid the day would be celebrated with dinners at the community center. He recalls “island lore” of an election where the results “hinged on the vote coming in the next day to the mainland, votes coming from Smith Island,” he said.
Kitching’s reference may be to the 1919 gubernatorial race when Albert C. Ritchie, Democrat, won by only 165 votes.
The reinstated polling place means plenty to do for Evans and the other chief election judge, Debbie Tyler, who have already been hard at work getting ready. The two were there to meet the boat and monitor the transfer of the election equipment to the polling station the day before Halloween.
Technically, one is a Democrat and the other is a Republican, fulfilling the idea of a two-party pairing of chief election judges. But Evans told Capital News Service she switched to the Republican Party to make that so. Two additional election judges will work the site as well.
On Tuesday, the bi-partisan local election board will have their hands full.
Evans will wake up early, arrive at the school by 5:30 a.m., and ready the polling site so polls can open promptly by 7 a.m.
She says she has done this work before – in at least three presidential elections – so she has some idea what to expect.
Yes, it’s a slight hassle to set up a whole polling site for about 150 eligible voters.
And yes, it’s no easy matter to run the election and then print, call in, and post the results all in one day.
But when it comes to voting, she said, it’s adventurous and exciting. Evans likes seeing her neighbors and celebrating the democratic tradition.
“Life is too short,” said Evans. “We all have a voice and we all should be thankful and happy to express that voice,” she said.
By 9 p.m. on Tuesday, the island’s results should be ready to share with the wider world, Evans said.
But there will still be work to do on the following day too. The election judges will have to sign off that the records have been safely picked up the next morning to be transferred by boat to the mainland for verification. The journey from Smith Island takes about 35 or 45 minutes, said Evans.
With their voting franchise freshly reaffirmed, the mood on Smith Island is brighter than some others are describing across the country.
“There is a saying on Smith Island,” said Evans, “once you lose something you don’t get it back, but that’s not true.” Evans hopes to see the defunct elementary school return just as the polling station did.
For her, the turn-of-fortune also offered an important lesson for a time of political strife.
“I would not waste one minute of my time with any anger, hatred, or division toward any political party,” she said. “We are all just here for whatever brief time we’re here, and it’s a waste of time.”
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