Josh Goldfein – on counting votes in Palm Beach.

Brooklyn, New York
November 20, 2000

Dear Dr. Steinberg:

Enclosed find a copy of Alfred Kazin’s “A Walker in the City,” the memoir we discussed about Brownsville (he says it was pronounced “Brunzvil”) in the ’30s. You’ll have to tell me whether you recognize any of the characters. Are you the “cancer specialist” in the where-they-are-now list of his peers on page 13?

Yvonne and I have just returned from four days of post-electioneering in West Palm. Two days after the election her boss told her to pack her bags; the “Democratic Recount Committee” needed Spanish-speaking lawyers. I volunteered too, even though my Spanish is terrible. It seemed like a great romantic adventure. My stomach was acting up on the flight – I thought you’d want to know – but it could have been the lunch I had at the Pakistan Tea House, or the changeover in Atlanta, which I always associate with flying to Alabama to work on my death-penalty case.

Our first assignment in West Palm was to return 8,000 calls from people who reported that their vote had not been properly recorded. About a hundred lawyers showed up for this duty, and if the person they called wasn’t home, they left a message, with two phone numbers to call back. Those extensions were on the table next to us, and they started ringing immediately – it seems everyone in Palm Beach screens their calls. It quickly became apparent that no one had been assigned to answer the call-back phones, so we took over that job.

We were supposed to get the people off the phone right away, to clear the line. That wasn’t easy. We’d ask if we could call them right back, but they didn’t want to let us go. The double-punched and Buchanan ballots may be a joke to the rest of the country, but these people were pissed, and pretty sensitive about it. “I’m not a senior,” they would say, or “I’m not stupid,” or “I’m an active person – I play tennis every day.” They bragged about their credentials or claimed that they had never voted in Florida before and were shocked that such antiquated equipment was still in use. One woman I spoke to just wanted some reassurance.

“Can you tell me who I voted for?” she asked.

“I can’t do that, ma’am,” I said, wondering how I was going to explain the concept of secret balloting without offending her.

“Okay,” she bargained. “Can you just tell me I didn’t vote for Buchanan? That’s all I really want to know.”

Not everyone had a problem recording their vote; some people said the ballot didn’t fit into the machine properly or they were refused help or a second ballot by a poll worker. Or they didn’t get to vote at all, because their name was not rostered. In a normal election, the poll worker is supposed to call the Election Board to verify the person’s registration, but this year of course the phones were going crazy at the Election Board, and no one was answering them.

Our phones also rang continuously, and we answered them for about ten hours a day. We assessed whether the caller had a legitimate complaint, and if we thought they did, we asked them to come sign an affidavit. It wasn’t a hard sell; even when we told people there was already a line, they couldn’t wait to come in.

Obviously I am ignoring your advice to get more rest and reduce the stress in my life. But I am also feeling less intimidated by your diagnosis. Since you told me my heartburn and chest pain are symptoms of gastro-esophagal reflux disease I have discovered that it’s a very trendy condition. It turns out a lot of my nervous friends have it.

I’ve also learned that it’s associated with imminent matrimony. My friend Jeremy and my Aunt Bonnie told me that, like me, they got it before their weddings. In my case it was pretty dramatic; it started the moment we told my mother. We have since decided that’s the moment we actually got engaged, since before that it didn’t seem real to either of us. We had been talking about it hypothetically for a while, and then Yvonne’s parents invited us to go to Patagonia with them. We knew we’d see all her relatives in Buenos Aires and we figured we’d have to tell them something about why she was back in town with the same guy they met six years ago. So we started talking about maybe telling them we were engaged, and that led to fantasies about what kind of wedding we could have, and the next thing we knew we were planning logistics with my mom. I got sick right away; I couldn’t get out of bed for a week and the top of my stomach, right under the point where the lowest ribs meet, was killing me. It was kind of the same as the election cliffhanger feeling, of being on the edge of something and fearing what will happen.

Even since I got home from Florida, my stomach has been feeling okay. I’m not sure what made the difference: I’m trying everything. Rich, my therapist, says I’m somaticizing my stress and I should act out more. Marie sent me to an acupuncturist, who said I have rebellious qi, but I don’t think that’s what Rich meant. Probably the biggest factor was losing the anxiety about our marriage. When Yvonne dropped me off at the Palm Beach airport ten minutes after my final phone call to a distressed voter, she said, “You know we’re going to be talking about this for the rest of our lives.” And at that moment I had no doubt we would be together forever.

We’re leaving for Patagonia the day after Thanksgiving; I’ll make another appointment to come see you when we get back. I just hope these damn elections are over by then.

Respectfully,

Josh