The All-Night Crew That Really Counts

Sure, Bob Lagomarsino and Nao Takasugi and other victorious Ventura County candidates worked hard enough to top the list of winners in this fall’s campaigns. But who among them was still around Election Central when the clock struck 4 a.m. on Wednesday?

Assistant Registrar of Voters Ruth Schepler was there, and so were Jenny Harrison, Bruce Bradley, Olivia Carrera, Clara Trom, Lucy Pommers and Christina Valencia. They are the core of the county’s election crew, and as is their custom, they labored through the night to finish the vote count.

“By the time we get to this part, we just want to get it over with,” Schepler said about 6 a.m. She wore a gray sweat suit and had reported for work exactly 24 hours before.

She had also arranged a pair of modest perks for her troops this year: For an hour or two before daybreak--while their computers digested final, unofficial results--they napped on cots borrowed from the Red Cross. In the past, workers were known to stretch out in the hallways.

“This is great,” said election technician Clara Trom, reveling in the comfort of her cot. “I feel like a queen.”

And as dawn broke, the election crew inaugurated a new tradition, sitting down to a celebratory potluck breakfast in the windowless bowels of the county Government Center in Ventura.

The county registrar of voters office has 12 year-round employees and 21 temporary workers who have spent most of this election year in the department, Schepler said.

In the course of a final Election Day, an estimated 2,900 county employees and volunteers have a working role in the process, including citizen aides, firefighters and sheriff’s deputies.

Only this Election Central handful works all night, Schepler said, and the resulting overtime wages are built into the department budget every year.

“We didn’t finish counting ballots until 3 a.m. Then we answered phone calls,” records technician Olivia Carrera said at 6:15 a.m. She had slept from 4 to 5:30, then risen to collate unofficial precinct-by-precinct breakdowns of the results. As she spoke, she laid out rolls of computer paper on long tables.

The breakdown statements ran 291 pages, covering races from Lagomarsino’s reelection in the 36th Congressional District to Takasugi’s reelection as mayor of Oxnard.

“The candidates and the press and those various entities--they want this bright and early,” said election supervisor Jenny Harrison.

A few feet away, computer specialist Bruce Bradley sat upright in a gray chair, head in hands, sound asleep.

“He’s had a long day,” said Schepler quietly, glancing his way.

But a moment later, Bradley was up and blinking, pulling on his glasses and staggering toward the computers.

It was a few minutes after that, at 7 a.m., when the overnight election crew finally gathered around the breakfast table. Bacon and scrambled eggs steamed before them. They each raised a glass of orange juice, squeezed from oranges grown in Trom’s yard in Bardsdale.

“Shall we toast our great election?” Schepler asked.

“Another one down the tubes,” Harrison said, and the glasses clinked.