Only one vital piece of the election process throughout North Carolina is missing — the extension of our heartfelt gratitude and thanks to those North Carolinians who volunteered to sacrifice their valuable time to function as poll workers throughout the election process. Many of these volunteers worked tirelessly through 13 days of early voting and then on Election Day. These volunteers began their day around 7:30 a.m. and did not end their day until around 8 p.m. each of those days. This is 12.5-hour days for volunteers whose average age was above 65 years old, many in their late seventies and early eighties. Truly a sign of great patriotism and dedication to our nation’s republic by these individuals.

I had the great honor and privilege of serving as a poll worker at the Haywood County early voting site, located at the Senior Recreation Center in Waynesville, with seven of these dedicated Americans. Every poll worker worked as a unified team to assure that the voters within Haywood County not only had the opportunity afforded them by our Constitution to vote, but to do so with the expectation that their voting site would process their votes with honor and integrity. This team checked and double checked every step of the process to assure that there were no errors or problems with the accurate processing and recording of each and every vote.

If you know any individual who volunteered to work at a polling site, please take the time to thank them for their hard work and dedication to our nation’s election process. They all deserve your thanks.

L.E. Cossette

Waynesville