Q: Lillian, a lot of Alliance folks might not know that our Luis and Lillian Outreach Center, or LLOC, is named for you. What’s the history there?
I was in the second Peer Leadership Training Group in 1992. I was hired the next year as a women’s health advocate, special events coordinator, and outreach worker. In 1995, I contracted tuberculosis while doing outreach. I was in and out of the hospital a lot, because of complications from tuberculosis. Luis Morales, another of the first employees at Alliance (then AIDS Service Center of Lower Manhattan) and a member of the Peer Leadership Training Group at the time, was sick. He passed away on October 17, 1995. The community center where LLOC is today was still 150 First Avenue. Our CEO Sharen and the board decided it should be dedicated to us: “In hope for Lillian. In memory of Luis.” I thought that was beautiful.
Q: You’ve had a lot of different roles over the years at Alliance. What do you do now?
Yes, I’ve done a lot of different things. I was a staff member from 1993-1999. Since 2002, I’ve been the President of our Consumer Advisory Council, hearing from our participants what’s working with our programs and what they want us to consider changing. But I also help plan, organize, and decorate our Thanksgiving events and other events like PREP graduations and World AIDS Day. And I co-facilitate our Arts Class on Thursdays with Ms. Louise. We used to have Valentine’s Day and other events that I’d coordinate. I’ve always wanted people who had lost family and friends to the virus to attend life-affirming events.
Q: You told me you’re a poll worker coordinator in this year’s election cycle. What does that mean, exactly?
Me and my co-coordinator teach poll workers who ensure voting is fair. We’re in charge of making sure all the processes of a fair election are followed for the thousands of people in my voting assembly district. We’re trained how to set up polling places, which can be in schools, community centers, or anywhere that has space. I work during the early voting period, which begins October 26, and goes every day through Sunday, November 3 (8:00am-5:00pm weekends, and 8:00am-8:00pm weekdays). Then I work all day on Election day (Tuesday, November 5), from 5:00am until the last ballot is cast. I work at JHS 56 in the Lower East Side and P.S. 184.
Photo: David Nager/Alliance
Q: Are there any little-known voting rules you have to enforce?
Hah! Yes. For example, if you get an absentee ballot sent to your house, you can’t show up at a polling location and vote in-person. They monitor the polling locations to make sure no one is inside or right outside with campaign signs or shirts—that’s called electioneering. You can’t enter a polling location as a walking ad for a candidate. We keep the election process fair.
Q: I imagine some people get really upset about that?
Oh yeah, most of us have been confronted, or threatened for saying “you can’t be here with that shirt, you need to turn it inside out and come back.” As the supervisor, I try to prepare poll workers for that, and help de-escalate things, and help people feel comfortable after the confrontations. My poll workers appreciate that. They’ve told me, “If you don’t come back next election, I’m not either.”
Q: So you train poll workers. What do they do?
They do a lot of things, because voting is so misunderstood. Some can be interpreters, some are accessibility clerks. They maintain the long lines, and there are other roles. Poll workers check-in voters and show them how to vote.
Q: When did you become a poll worker, and why?
In 1987, when my mom’s best friend was running for Democratic representative of her district. The Democratic and Republican parties can have representatives from every district. I always cared about voting, but knowing someone who was running for office made me more interested in how it happens.
Q: Is there any overlap between your work at Alliance and as a poll worker supervisor?
Alliance helped me become a leader. My work here showed me how to deal with all kinds of people, to really explain stuff in a way that helps them, and not to take things personally. Sometimes people have an attitude, and our work can be stressful, just like working the polls, so I kind of learned to just remind myself that their issues aren’t related to me or my work.
Q: In all these years, what was the strangest election you worked?
Definitely 2012, because it was just days after Hurricane Sandy. So many neighborhoods were destroyed and transportation was impossible, so people were allowed to vote anywhere in New York City. Poll workers and the Board of Elections had to check records to make sure nobody tried to vote twice.
Q: It sounds like a tough job with lots of procedural changes from election to election. Why do you keep doing it?
Well, I don’t do it for the money, I do it because voting is everyone’s responsibility. I think it’s a requirement. It’s your duty. A lot of people in the world don’t have the right to vote. And this year, you could really say that democracy is on the line. I don’t care who you vote for, but you have to vote. You can write in anyone; you can even vote for yourself.