Tomorrow, I'll be taking time off from my regular work fighting cybercrime to help my fellow citizens with another important task: exercising their electoral franchise by casting ballots.

In 2020, I decided to sign up to work for my county here in Colorado and help out at the largest polling location, the University Memorial Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder. I'll be working there again this year.

One takeaway I've learned from working at the polls is that my election officials, led by the Colorado Secretary of State and Boulder County's clerk and recorder, have put an enormous amount of thought and work into preparing the election process to be incredibly transparent, fair, and accessible to any eligible voter.

This year, I trained with dozens of other people in my community to learn how to assist voters with this process. The training was rigorous, and included about 12 hours of online training and a day and a half of training in person. People hired for more senior positions attended additional training, but I wasn't interested in being a Lead. I wanted to help voters with registration and using the electronic Ballot Marking Devices (or BMDs) so I have been working as an "ePollbook and Tech Judge" this year.

The cybersecurity aspects of what we're doing are no joke. We are required to memorize multiple long, complex passwords for different systems we need to log in to. We will also have at least two different multifactor authentication systems in use to protect the access to our accounts.

Our training also included some topics I wish we didn't have to learn about: Conflict de-escalation, information about election misinformation and disinformation campaigns, and how to respond if someone engages in violence in a polling place. I guess this is the world we live in, now. I don't like it, but I'm glad the people running our elections are clear-eyed and focused on what we need to know to stay safe while helping others.

Today was an incredibly long day. While many people used the touchscreens - I checked in 22 voters myself - many more of these first-time voters told me they wanted to do it "old school," marking the paper ballot with a pen.

Tomorrow, it's going to be an even longer day, since polls open earlier and close later. We're expecting long lines all day. It will be an all hands on deck situation in the Voter Service Center. And I, for one, cannot wait. It is thrilling and very, very encouraging to see so many young, first-time voters decide to take this leap into a new form of public engagement.

So tomorrow, I hope (if you haven't already) that you can get out to the polls where you live. I'll be there, and so will thousands of my compatriots, bipartisan election workers who will help you register, or get you a ballot, or maybe just hand you an "I Voted" sticker. Give them a thumbs up or a nod - they're doing important work, and they'll appreciate it.