Working the polls is a lifestyle for McDowell

COEUR d’ALENE — Last week’s primary election capped nearly 60 years of service by Bonnie McDowell as an elections judge in Kootenai County.

McDowell was born in a house her father built near 15th Street and Harrison Avenue here in Coeur d’Alene. The 88-year-old spent a year in Seattle back in the days when she could ride her bike to the airport along what is now a major highway. But her dad’s welding job didn’t keep the family on the coast for long. The McDowells returned to Coeur d’Alene, where her grandfather had a chicken ranch, and here the young lady has stayed.

As a young woman, Bonnie worked alongside her mother at a voting precinct. Her mother was an elections judge. With a year or two of experience as a poll worker under her belt, McDowell was asked to serve as an elections judge herself. At that time, the county elections office gave elections judges a large card to place in the window of their homes, advertising the fact that they could register people to vote.

Yes, in those days people would come to someone’s house to register to vote.

There were some other differences too in those days. Elections judges canvassed their precincts, urging people to register to vote and exercise their rights in elections.

The electoral layout was very different then, as much of what are now residential neighborhoods were then sparsely populated farms. Voting precincts were therefore much larger than they are now, McDowell said.

She started off serving at various precincts as the county had need of her skills as an elections judge. Eventually McDowell settled into a precinct that voted at Lakes Middle School. She remained elections judge there until an elections judge position in her home precinct came open.

During her first election day at Lakes, the precinct staff worked until 2 a.m., she said with a laugh. Coeur d’Alene City Attorney Bill McFarland came down to help out. The Brunswick Cafe — now part of the Iron Horse Bar and Grill — brought dinner. In subsequent years, McDowell said her staff were lucky to be out by 9 p.m., but usually wrapped up elections results at their precinct by 10 p.m.

Because precincts 56 and 57 share the same voting station on Pennsylvania Avenue at Christ the King Lutheran Church, McDowell said the two precincts’ poll workers usually share a potluck for lunch and dinner. For the last decade, a local precinct committeeman has also brought in pizzas for the workers, which McDowell gratefully said “really spoiled” them. Voters surge into the voting precinct after school lets out, but it is quiet during the morning, she said.

After polls closed and her staff had counted all the precinct’s votes, McDowell explained that she and another poll worker would accompany the sealed ballot box to the county elections office. After delivering the ballots to the county, she would go to a local hangout spot to await the full elections results and have a good time with friends. She couldn’t remember his name, but McDowell laughed as she recalled a local doctor who serenaded the victors on each election night.

Exercising the right to vote is a family tradition. In addition to her own mother having served as an elections judge, McDowell’s daughter, Gloria, has become the new precinct 57 elections judge, and her other daughter, Maria, is the poll worker who takes voters’ ballots there, she said. Her son, Michael, has served as Kootenai County assessor since 2002.

McDowell said it’s fun to see young people, like her 18-year-old grandson, Travis McDowell, show up to vote for the first time.

She enjoys seeing her fellow locals on election days. “It’s really interesting and fun to get to see people that I don’t see very often,” she said.

From here on, McDowell will help on election days as a greeter and as someone to fill in when other precinct 57 poll workers have to step out, she said.

The county has benefited from her labors, said Kootenai County Elections Manager Carrie Phillips.

“We appreciate all her hard work and her many years of service,” she said.

Phillips was hopeful that McDowell would continue being a presence on election days at precinct 57 for years to come.