Northcutt says the idea of helping during an election came years ago during the 1970s.
"Well, it was really sort of a gradual kind of thing. I had worked on elections going back years and years ago. I had a good friend who was an election judge long time ago when we voted at our own precincts, and there was no early voting," Northcutt said. "I would get off work and I would usually go by her polling place and help her close up the polls and take the equipment into Election Central and then take her somewhere to eat. Because at the end of a day, the election judge is really dead tired."
It was a way for her to give back and help transform democracy, almost like how she changed the space world nearly six decades ago.
NASA's Apollo program featured Northcutt right at the center. At the time she worked at the Johnson Space Center as a contractor for TRW Systems.
She would become the first woman in NASA's Mission Control.
History made.
"I'm just full of pride, not about myself so much... It is about the whole achievement, that it's a teamwork," she said. "I mean, there's nothing, there's no bigger team than that in terms of that kind of enterprise. So just a lot of pride about 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 is now serving as an election judge.
However, she's not an actual judge but her responsibility as an election judge means she's in charge of her polling location. The preparation for Election Day starts months before.
"There's so much information that you'll end up with a training manual that's about close to two inches thick. Okay. About how, how to handle all the various situations. So you're trained on the equipment, uh, you're trained on the processes and so forth. Then right before the election, like one or two days before the election itself, usually you'll do a preliminary setup."
In Harris County, there are 12,000 trained election workers. That includes presiding judges, alternate judges, clerks, and student clerks.
This year, there will possibly be more eyes on elections across Harris County. As ABC13 previously reported, Texas is sending inspectors to monitor after officials found problems in previous elections.
Northcutt says having someone watch is nothing new.
"Well, first of all, there's always been a lot of scrutiny. At least, you know, at my polling place, I always have somebody from the AG's office there. I always, almost all, you know, I, I'll have inspectors there," she said. "So, you know, there's nothing new about there being a lot of security around elections. I think what's new is all of this people, these people feeling insecure about elections, they're extremely secure. I mean, yes, there are going to be some mistakes. I mean, we vote millions of people in Harris County. Okay. I mean, what can you do if you deal with millions without there being an occasional mistake? But the idea that there are some huge mistakes going on is just false."
Once the polls close on Nov. 5, she says, the work doesn't stop.
"You've got all of this equipment that's got to be packed up. Then you've got a whole bunch of that equipment that the election judge has to personally get to the turn in place," she said. "I mean, you've been working on it hopefully throughout the whole day so that you don't have to do everything at the last minute. But there's a lot of paperwork that, that goes in accounting for the number of ballots, accounting for the number of voters and so forth."
According to the Texas Division of Elections, there are nearly 18.6 million registered voters across the state for this election.
How does that stack up 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 then a few days later, I go...(smiles). It's a privilege to serve, to know you're playing a role to help our government function, to help democracy survive," she said.