It was Election Day 2008 – the day when Barak Obama was elected the first Black president of United States – and Dottie McCarthy was new to her job in the Warwick Board of Canvassers.

She had no idea what to expect, nor as it turned out did Joseph Gallucci, who headed the office. People who had not registered to vote were standing outside City Hall when the doors opened at 7 p.m. and were still coming in minutes before the polls closed at 8 p.m. In total, more than 1,500 Warwick residents registered and voted for president that election day.

Fast-forward 12 years and McCarthy now directs the Board of Canvassers. Based on what she experienced in 2008 and the elections that followed, she anticipates a lot of unregistered voters will show up at City Hall on Tuesday. She doesn’t think it will be as many as in 2008, “but you never know.”

She explained that residents who haven’t registered can both register and vote – for president and vice president only – on Election Day. They have to come to City Hall to do it and they should bring photo identification.

Given the interest in the election this year even in the midst of a pandemic, it’s a safe bet that there will be a heavy turnout of unregistered voters looking to cast ballots at the last minute for president.

But then there have been those who aren’t waiting.

Since early voting started on Oct. 14, it’s been non-stop with lines stretched outside City Hall first thing in the morning and at the lunch hour. Yet it has moved quickly, with most voters waiting no more than 10 minutes before having their license or photo identification scanned, being handed a ballot and directed to one of several voting stations to mark their ballot. Ballots are then fed into a single machine.

After four days of voting, the machine had recorded 2,574 ballots and McCarthy and three others knew they had to empty it. It was a bigger job than they imagined. After breaking the seal and unlocking the collection box, they had to deal with a jumble of ballots, making sure they were aligned properly to be stored in security boxes labeled and dated. The ballots are then stored at City Hall. Meanwhile, the machine has the vote tallies on a drive that are printed off once the polls close. The drive is then removed and read as well, explained McCarthy.

As of the Tuesday report from the Secretary of State’s online Voter Information Center, 6,727 Warwick voters had cast early ballots and another 11,802 had cast mail ballots. Warwick has about 57,000 registered voters.

McCarthy expects a number of voters who applied for but didn’t cast their mail ballots will show up at their polling location on Election Day. From experience, she anticipates poll workers will be given a number of excuses, from “I threw it out” to “I never got it.”

These voters will be given a provisional ballot, as it has to be determined whether in fact they have already voted by mail or not.

“We have to decide whether they have already voted, and if they have, not only are they disqualified, but they’re a felon,” she said.

Unlike other municipalities that are having difficulty filling poll positions, McCarthy said people are stepping forward to help with the effort and she believes she’ll have the 330 poll workers needed.

“We’ve had out share of mister and misses patriots,” she said of callers volunteering to help. She takes down the names and contact information and is sure to let them know, if she calls on them, they will get paid.