By the People

While the right to vote is taken for granted by most Americans, the actual task of ensuring free and fair elections falls mainly to volunteer county poll workers. In an increasingly high tech age, how does a county elections board manage change? Malindi Fickle's PBS-aired documentary By the People travels to Marion County, IN in America's heartland to follow the run-up to the 2004 Presidential election. The election board's duties include recruiting and training poll workers, managing new realities (such as election day bomb threat contingency planning), demonstrating new voting machines, and distributing absentee ballots to nursing homes and jails. As the big voting day approaches, the board headquarters resembles a war room swinging into action, with workers manning phones, meeting the media, and trying to untangle a host of last minute snags (the program also notes that two million poll workers are needed to handle an election nationwide, and today's frontline workers for democracy are aging, leading some to wonder where replacements will be found). Although thoughtful and provocative (reminding us that a discouraging 50% turnout is likely in most elections), the cinéma vérité-shot By the People would have benefited from tighter editing and narration to clarify some of the major points. Likely to date quickly, this should still be considered a strong optional purchase given the overall heightened national interest and concern over the voting process. Aud: C, P. (S. Rees)