For 66th Year, Irvine Woman Will Take Her Poll Position

During her 91 years, Ethel Irish Coplen of Irvine has traveled the world, toured exotic Asian lands and even danced ballet with a violin on her shoulder and taps on the tips of her pointe shoes.

But no matter what her schedule called for, she always, without fail, made it back to the states at election time.

Today, she’ll be at her place checking registration lists and handing out ballots just as she has for the 65 elections that came before.

“I like to see who doesn’t vote,” said Irish Coplen, surrounded by cardboard polling booths in the clubhouse of Irvine’s Rancho San Joaquin. “Then I give them hell.”

Given the physical realities that anyone in her ninth decade faces, she will not be lifting boxes this year, restricting herself to clerk duties. It would be enough of a sacrifice for any citizen, but Irish Coplen said she revels in it. “I get to meet all my neighbors,” she said.

She has other officials in the city in awe.

“How different would this country be if everyone had even 10% of the commitment Ethel has,” said George Searcy, the city’s superintendent of community services.

Life has been a fantastic voyage, said Irish Coplen, who doesn’t quite reach 5 feet tall and weighs 110 pounds. Her duties at the polling booth, and in many other volunteer organizations, is just a small payback.

“It’s the least I can do for living in such a wonderful country,” she said. “People expect a lot of things from government, but if they don’t vote, they don’t deserve anything.”

Irish Coplen was almost an Orange County native. Her mother had returned for her birth from Hawaii to El Toro--where her father was an Episcopal minister. But then her mother rushed up to San Francisco to visit her sister after the famous earthquake and Ethel surprised her with an early arrival on the trip.

Her life remained unorthodox.

She graduated from UCLA in 1926, with the intent of going on to law school. But her father wanted her to work for his Los Angeles-based contracting business, an endeavor she took over in 1946 when he died.

When she was still a teenager, she was dancing at the Hollywood Bowl and spots in Los Angeles and in other cities. She soon realized she could not tolerate the drunken craziness of life on the road and was a teetotaler for years afterward. “I’ve seen too many idiots,” she said of her inebriated co-stars.

She married in 1933 and then divorced her husband, although for decades she told everyone she was a widow. (“Well, he did die later,” she explained.) She became engaged about 10 times but never went through a second marriage.

She had a business knack that got her through the Depression. For one 30-year period, she was a cruise director for the Matson Line.

Irish Coplen was just 26 years old when she staffed her first polling booth in 1932 and in those days, ballots were counted by hand.

“It was a pain in the neck,” she said. “We’d get there about 5 or 6 a.m. and we would work until 2 a.m.”

But she kept doing it for every major election, imbuing her two children with a love for politics. Her daughter, Diane Coplen Stadlinger, who died two years ago, went on to write speeches for Richard Nixon and others. Her son, Keith, an Irvine resident, works as a political consultant and behind-the-scenes manager for the county’s GOP.

Irish Coplen herself ran for only one office, and in 1993 won a seat on the Irvine Senior Citizens Council. Otherwise, she had no interest in being out front on the campaign trail. Her civic duty is done literally at the ballot box each election.

She planned to start today’s work again about 6 a.m., although two hip surgeries means she can no longer lift boxes. But that doesn’t mean she is no longer ready to do her part.

“I do worry about this country,” she said. “People are not interested and I think people should get interested. I don’t think it’s good for America if they don’t.”