During Tuesday's election, he explained the voting process to two or three people who came in the door, didn't show anyone how to use the voting booth, read the newspaper and made progress researching a new health insurance plan.

From 7 a.m. until the polls closed at 8 p.m., 10 people cast their ballots at the polling station.

"We read some books, we talked," said Herrera, a retiree who used to manage auditors for the Internal Revenue Service in Modesto. "Besides being slow and monotonous, if we didn't have the people at the church to talk to, it would have been a long day."

During city and local district voting Tuesday, the election workers outnumbered the voters at some polling places in Stanislaus County.

At nine of the 159 polling locations, 10 people or fewer came in to cast ballots.