For Nancy Newlin, the Rappahannock Country registrar, there appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding about what she does and what goes into making an election happen.

"When people say 'what can be so hard about working one day year' I just want to throw things at them," said Newlin, who has held the position for 14 years after the previous registrar passed away mid-term.

Newlin, who is in the midst of her third appointed, four-year term, is an independent official, unaffiliated with any political party. Her responsibilities include registering voters, managing both the budget for running elections, training election day workers, and ensuring balloting runs smoothly and that all the votes are collected and tallied. The work is year-round.

"It starts six to eight weeks prior to the election when we start programming the voting machines," Newlin said. Until recently, Rappahannock County still used paper ballots. Three years ago the county of about 7,000 residents acquired voting machines, but the technology does not mean Newlin can just sit back and relax.

"They have to be programmed for their memory card and then you have to do diagnostic testing to make sure they accept every ballot and every person's name," she explained last week.

Also well ahead of official voting, the registrar's office must deal with those who cannot vote in person on Election Day. Absentee ballots are handled by having voters cast their ballots ahead of time at the registrar's office. The ballots are then sent to the polls on Election Day.

"Once everyone has voted in person they're put in the machines and counted along with everyone else," Newlin said. "It's not like Florida where it's counted days afterwards, everything is done on Election Day here."

Even with the machines programmed and the absentee voters dealt with, there still remains one of Newlin's biggest challenges: training the office of elections -- the workers who run the various polling stations across the county.

"Getting the office of elections has been difficult these past few years," Newlin said. "We thought once we got the voting machines it would be a breeze, but they still have to be here from about 5 in the morning to 8:30, 9 o'clock."

The Democratic and Republican parties in the county submit lists of people willing to work on Election Day, though Newlin says it's never enough and many people often pull out. She adds that many of the people that do volunteer don't have the time to dedicate a full day to election work.

"They're either going out of the county to work or they're staying at home with their little ones," she said. "And the elderly people, they can't put in those kinds of days."

There are some municipalities that use special programs to recruit people to work Election Day -- some counties allow teachers to work polling stations in return for a day off. While Rappahannock has no such programs, they do pay their volunteers.

"Some people think it's free so when we give them a check they're really surprised," Newlin said.

The kind of people that volunteer run the gamut from new arrivals to "old faithfuls," she said. "We have one woman who's done it for 30 years; she's never missed an election."

This year, Virginia's early primary comes with a whole new set of challenges. Many residents are not aware there is an election coming. Others have confused the Feb. 10 vote with the general election and asking why President Bush will not be on the ballot. And while the primary is normally scheduled in June, this year voters may have to deal with harsh winter conditions to get to the polls.

Still, she is optimistic about the turnout. For the first time in a long time, Virginia voters will have a real say in picking the Democratic nominee.

"We've gotten a lot of calls, a lot of people interested," Newlin said. "This year, Virginia matters."

-- By Chris Nammour, Online NewsHour