First woman at NASA’s Mission Control, now Frances Poppy Northcutt as election judge

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Frances “Poppy” Northcutt is a woman of many talents. She is an engineer and lawyer and during election season she holds the title of election judge.

Northcutt says the idea to help during elections came about years ago, in the 1970s.

“Well, it was gradual actually. I had worked on elections years and years ago. I had a good friend who was an election judge a long time ago when we were voting in our own precinct, and there was no early voting,” Northcutt said. “I would come home from work and usually go by her polling place and help her close the polls, take the equipment to Election Central and then take her somewhere to eat. Because at the end of the day, the election judge is really tired.”

It was a way for her to give back and help transform democracy, almost as she transformed the space world almost sixty years ago.

In NASA’s Apollo program, Northcutt was right in the middle. At the time, she worked at the Johnson Space Center as a contractor for TRW Systems.

She would become the first woman in NASA Mission Control.

History made.

“I’m just full of pride, not so much about myself… It’s about the whole achievement, that it’s teamwork,” she said. “I mean, there’s nothing, there’s no bigger team than that in terms of those types of ventures. So just a lot of pride in the accomplishments of that team in doing what President Kennedy challenged us to do. And then we actually did it. “

From space to the polls, Northcutt now serves as an election judge.

However, she is not a real judge, but her responsibility as an election judge means that she is in charge of her polling station. Preparation for Election Day starts months earlier.

‘There’s so much information that you end up with a training manual that’s about two inches thick. Okay. About how to deal with all different situations. So you’re trained on the equipment, um, you’re trained on the processes and so on. Just before the elections, for example one or two days before the elections themselves, you usually carry out some preliminary preparation.’

There are 12,000 trained election workers in Harris County. That includes presiding judges, deputy judges, clerks and student clerks.

There may be more eyes on elections in Harris County this year. As ABC13 previously reported, Texas is sending inspectors to monitor after officials discovered problems in previous elections.

Northcutt says having someone watching is nothing new.

“Well, first of all, there’s always been a lot of control. You know, at least at my polling place I always have someone from the AG’s office there. I will always, almost all, you know, I, I will There are inspectors there,” she said. “So, you know, there’s nothing new about the fact that there’s a lot of security around elections. I think the new thing is that all these people feel insecure about elections, they are extremely safe. I mean, yes, there will be I mean, we vote for millions of people in Harris County. Okay, what can you do when you deal with millions without making the occasional mistake? simply false.”

Once the polls close on November 5, the work doesn’t stop, she says.

“You’ve got all this equipment that needs to be packed up. Then you have a whole bunch of equipment that the election judge has to personally get on site,” she said. “I mean, you’ve been working on it all day hopefully so you don’t have to do everything at the last minute. But there is a lot of paperwork involved, dealing with the number of ballots, accounting for the number of voters, and so on.”

There are nearly 18.6 million registered voters across the state for this election, according to the Texas Division of Elections.

How does that compare to previous presidential elections?

• 2020: 16,955,519
• 2016: 15,101,087
• 2012: 13,646,226

“Why be part of this election…why do what you do?” ABC13 asked Northcutt.

“I ask myself the next day after every election because I’m so tired and I say to myself, ‘I don’t think I can do this again.’ But a few days later I’m going…(smiles). It’s a privilege to serve, to know that you play a role in helping our government function, in helping democracy survive,” she said.