After all is said and done following a presidential election, we may have neglected to recognize the team of unsung heroes that helped make it all happen.

Understandably, the things most people see and hear are the campaign signs, debates, and various news stories about a candidate.

But before all of that culminates into Pearl River County residents stepping up to a voting machine and performing their civic duty, many local residents dedicated many hours to organize the events of Election Day.

The voting machines we all used to cast our voice had to be tested. While we only saw four or five machines at our polling place, there are 32 polling places around the county, each of which hosting four to five machines.

That makes for dozens of machines that have to be tested by our county’s election commissioners to ensure they are operational before Election Day. While these men and women serve in an elected position, they rarely receive recognition for their efforts.

After those machines are tested, they have to be repacked and distributed to the poll workers.

This is another group of individuals under appreciated for their service to the community.

They get paid, but not very much, to ensure that everyone gets their fair chance to vote for their favorite candidate. At times they have to deal with county residents who may become upset that they have been listed as an inactive voter or arrived at the wrong precinct by mistake.

Then, at the end of the voting day, the poll workers run through a complicated process of shutting down the machines, packing up the supplies and heading to the courthouse in Poplarville where all of our votes tallied by the hardworking staff of the Circuit Clerk’s office.

All of that is compounded by the fact that this election brought one of the biggest turnouts in recent history, only rivaling the election of 2008.

We would like to say “Thank you” to everyone that helped make Tuesday an easy process.