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She helped save Apollo 13. Now she's making sure Harris County ballots land safely on Election Day.
Way to go Poppy. Poppy is a member of the Harris County Democratic Lawyers Association and is a great election judge
Link to tweet
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/She-helped-save-Apollo-13-She-s-still-struggling-17195494.php?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=referral
Houstonians who cast their ballots at the Galleria area La Quinta Inn in Tuesday's primary runoff election probably had no idea the woman running the place once brought Apollo 13 astronauts safely back to Earth. As a pioneering woman engineer in NASA's Mission Control Center, Northcutt won a presidential medal of freedom for her role in saving Apollo 13. For the past 10 years, Poppy Northcutt has been a Harris County election judge, the person who presides over a polling location.
Northcutt was at the La Quinta Inn before dawn, working with her team to open the polling location by 7 am. When the polls close at 7 pm, her mission is far from over. There's a whole process to get ballots ready to deliver to the county's central counting station at NRG Arena. At at time when voters are inundated with election legal challenges and partisan talking points, Northcutt - and thousands of election workers across the state - are getting the ballots counted......
I'm very worried about the [November] general election in particular. Poll watchers are going to be a problem, and that's just going to be a total unknown. You've just got a line of people. And then you've also got all these poll watchers that you're supposed to be monitoring? Well, you've only got one set of eyes. And if they do something awful, the way that legislation is written, the election judge has to have personally seen it. Well, how am I supposed to personally see this if I'm trying to cancel this mail ballot for this person? I can't be watching everything, everywhere. If legislators had actually ever worked these polls, they would know that. And if they're not going to know it personally, then they should be paying attention to the people who do. Asking "how is this actually going to work? Is this going to be manageable or not?" We've always had a poll watcher or two, but that was a nothing kind of event. But they're calling for hordes of poll watchers. They're probably not going to be at my polling place. They may be in minority polling places and that's going to be a problem. If you have a bunch of racial tension going on, as well, just will exacerbate it tremendously. And Harris County is going to be the focal point, because Harris County can turn this whole state.
Northcutt was at the La Quinta Inn before dawn, working with her team to open the polling location by 7 am. When the polls close at 7 pm, her mission is far from over. There's a whole process to get ballots ready to deliver to the county's central counting station at NRG Arena. At at time when voters are inundated with election legal challenges and partisan talking points, Northcutt - and thousands of election workers across the state - are getting the ballots counted......
I'm very worried about the [November] general election in particular. Poll watchers are going to be a problem, and that's just going to be a total unknown. You've just got a line of people. And then you've also got all these poll watchers that you're supposed to be monitoring? Well, you've only got one set of eyes. And if they do something awful, the way that legislation is written, the election judge has to have personally seen it. Well, how am I supposed to personally see this if I'm trying to cancel this mail ballot for this person? I can't be watching everything, everywhere. If legislators had actually ever worked these polls, they would know that. And if they're not going to know it personally, then they should be paying attention to the people who do. Asking "how is this actually going to work? Is this going to be manageable or not?" We've always had a poll watcher or two, but that was a nothing kind of event. But they're calling for hordes of poll watchers. They're probably not going to be at my polling place. They may be in minority polling places and that's going to be a problem. If you have a bunch of racial tension going on, as well, just will exacerbate it tremendously. And Harris County is going to be the focal point, because Harris County can turn this whole state.
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