Krissie Fung was NOT a typical teen,
and so, might not be a typical adult. Having been born in Virginia, she spent her early years in Hong Kong, but then moved to California, but also was enjoying summer visits with family in Wisconsin. From California, Krissie went to college in New York City, and spent her summers in Hong Kong, and after all that big-city living, decided she needed a break, and landed in…Milwaukee.
While she has been in the great city by a Great Lake for nearly six years, she still hasn’t “settled down”. In 2021, during the pandemic, she joined the local bonsai society and a book club, earned two bartending licenses, learned how to rappel, helped get an anti-Asian-American/Pacific Islanders hate resolution passed in West Allis, worked multiple part-time jobs (though now has just one full-time job as grants manager at Milwaukee Turners, of Turner Hall), and became a Chief Election Inspector!
But back to my first assertion – Krissie was NOT a typical teen. Whereas many teens might be thinking about their driver’s license or homework or school drama…at age 16, Krissie was getting pre-registered to vote, so that she could volunteer at her local voting site as an election worker. Her passion for participatory democracy might come from being part of a family who is politically conscious and active. Her father is a naturalized citizen, and she saw the impression that being able to vote created on him. She has an aunt who was recently participating in the movement for more fair legislative maps in Wisconsin, and Krissie has not been afraid of standing up for what she thinks is right, too.
Heck, she can remember being a first grader, when a new tardiness policy was put in place. She was so upset by this policy, felt it was so unfair, that she had her parents take her to a school meeting, so she could express her concerns in front of the teachers and principal. She says, “I’ve always been kind of a…loud person about what I believe in…I was in debate club, mock trial, and all those things where the loud kids go.”
Now Krissie is nearly 30, and having started election-working at age 16, she’s spent nearly half her life working in the election system! Krissie has been a poll worker everywhere she has lived and been eligible to be a voter. She has a great philosophy about the whole election-work process:
“…it’s not glamorous, sometimes it’s kinda boring. It’s not the kind of work you would think is fun at 16, heck, you wouldn’t think of it as fun at…at any point in your life. Like, it’s not fun to change a child’s diaper, but you do it as a part of love and raising a child. And so this is something I do as part of love for the concept of having a participatory democracy. So, you don’t think about the fact that it’s boring, it’s just part of the process.”
Krissie has risen through the ranks of poll workers at her district, completed all the training required, and worked all the roles at one point or another. She says her favorite role is working in voter registration, helping people get the proper paperwork they need to become official, though she does wish automatic voter registration could become a thing. Her favorite part of the day is at the end of the day, when the polls are closed, her site’s numbers have been checked and confirmed for the umpteenth time, and then,
“…Central Count calls and says, ‘your numbers are in and part of the count’, and that is the moment I feel like, yeah, it’s real, we did this! It’s such a long day, and you get so into the process, and all the checks and balances, and all these people came to us and they voted, and now they are real election results; it’s a great WOW! moment!”
There are still a number of people who are trying to contest Wisconsin’s 2020 presidential election (which has been reaffirmed numerous times). Many of these bad actors are tossing around theories and suggestions that the election was manipulated. Krissie has little patience for those ideas:
“I invite these people that think there’s some sorta hanky-panky to come in and take the poll worker training, come be a poll worker. A lot of places send in election observers, and that’s great, but that’s a LOT less work than being an actual poll worker. I would like to see you sit in the poll worker training, and then work a shift – and that can be 7a-10p – and then you’ll see how many checks and balances there actually are.”
As Chief Election Inspector at her site, Krissie is responsible for signing off their numbers, assigning roles for the day, issuing the poll worker’s oath to new workers (“there is an oath, and we take it very seriously…”), checking seals on the voting machines, overseeing absentee ballots, and many other responsibilities. The “deepest purpose” of the poll workers, Krissie says, is “…to make sure that everybody that is legally able to vote, is able to vote.”
Besides a passion for elections, Krissie is also very interested in community-building another way – through community BUILDINGS – historic preservation! She is a big proponent of JANE’S WALK, an effort in which the people in neighborhoods organize informative walks about their areas and history.
Krissie says, “I’m constantly filling my time up…I like to experience a lot different things.” I mentioned how I had recently read a biography of Charles Dickens, and Krissie is a bit like him, making sure alllll of her time is filled up with passionate pursuits. She replied, “I suspect a lot of our cool, favorite historical figures may have been…neurodivergent, and we just didn’t have the phrasing for it back then.”
With all she does, I asked Krissie if she had plans/resolutions for 2022, and her response was darn nice…
“My new year’s resolution is “you’re doing great, buddy, whatever you’ve been doing, keep doing that.
…I wanna be like Dr. Fauci, where I’m still running when I’m 70, and that may mean I’m slower – because I’m not pushing myself to injury – the goal is to do cool stuff as long as I want. My goals are to keep learning the things that I think are cool. And to keep trying at everything. That has done well for me last year, and I think it’ll do good this year.”
Milwaukee has a mayoral election on April 5th. Get informed, and get out and vote!
