November 6, 2012 at 8:22 PM

Inside the HUB-Robeson Center, Maeve McCullough, Judge of Elections for Precinct 44, has had a long day. She drove in at 5:30 a.m. to start her job, which consisted of pointing students to which precinct to vote in and help answer any question. The most challenging part, however, happens after the polls close.

McCullough (sophomore-integrated arts) and her staff have a giant checklist after she closes the doors.

“We have to check the tally machine, absentee ballots, and count all of the ballots from voters,“ McCollough said. “If we get it wrong here, it affects everyone.“

After all the votes have been counted, they deliver everything to the Willowbank building in Bellefonte, she said.

There can be a lot of mistakes throughout the day, especially by first year voters. McCollough recalled the funniest error today was a voter not reading the top of the ballot and checking off every box. The vote became voided.

McCollough started working with elections since she was 16 in high school, she said. It all began when her Advanced Government teacher, Mr. Fitzgerald told her to help out. Ever since then, she said she has loved doing this and has had much fun. She said she has worked state, local, primaries and now presidential elections.

She said there are some benefits from being a government worker, such as getting reimbursed for gas mileage.

McCollough said she isn‘t allowed to give up to the minute exact numbers on which candidate might be winning or how many votes have been recorded so far. But according to her guess, she said there have been 3,000 voters so far in the HUB today and the amount of support for Romney and Obama has been equal based off of the pins voters have worn today.