A 77-YEAR STREAK: At 95, an age when most people are taking it easy, Laura Wooten is still working the polls. She’s been at it since just after graduating from Princeton High School in 1939, and she is raring to go on November 8.

Last June 7, Laura Wooten was waiting for a ride from her Lawrenceville home to the polling station at the local firehouse. It was the day of the New Jersey primary, and her driver was a few minutes behind schedule. So Ms. Wooten, who is 95, decided to walk. It was 4:30 in the morning.

“I love this story,” recalled Yvonne Hill, one of Ms. Wooten’s five children. “She just started walking, in the dark! She couldn’t wait. She had to get there, and get there on time. The person who was driving her saw her walking and picked her up.”

Should Ms. Wooten’s transportation to the polling place on November 8 dare to be off schedule, she will most certainly grab her cane and hit the road again. “Voting is so important,” she said this week. “And this is the worst campaign I’ve ever seen in my life. And I’ve seen a lot.”

The coming election will mark Ms. Wooten’s 77th year as a poll worker with the Board of Elections in New Jersey. She hasn’t missed a year since her uncle, Anderson Mitnaul, ran for justice of the peace in 1939 and convinced her to work for $10 as a “challenger,” checking voter IDs.

Ms. Wooten holds the record as the longest-serving poll worker in New Jersey. The League of Women Voters of New Jersey gave her a Lifetime Achievement Award last year. This past September, she was recognized at Twitter headquarters in Washington.

“My mother is incredible,” said Ms. Hill, who lives in Florida. “She has a generous spirit. She’s always trying to help everybody. She’s extremely dedicated to something she believes in, and voting is just that.”

Born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, Ms. Wooten moved to Princeton when she was four years old. She graduated from Princeton High School in 1939 and married three years later. In addition to her five children, she has 16 grandchildren, 36 great-grandchildren, and another on the way.

Ms. Wooten was a nurse’s aide at the University Medical Center of Princeton for 18 years; then moved across the street to become a teaching assistant at Community Park School. Now in her 25th year checking ID’s in the dining hall of Princeton University’s Butler College, she has no plans to retire.

Memories of growing up and raising a family in Princeton, when it was a small town, bring a smile to Ms. Wooten’s face. But she doesn’t forget the days of segregation. The hospital had a black section and a white section. “There was one black doctor in town,” she recalled. “He could send patients to the hospital, but he couldn’t go in and see them.”

During her many years in Princeton, Ms. Wooten lived at various times on Leigh Avenue, Olden Lane, John Street, Witherspoon Street, and Witherspoon Lane. Her husband, Chester, died in 1990. She moved to Lawrenceville to be near family members after he passed away. “I’m still trying to get used to it,” she said. “There’s no transportation.”

Recently, Ms. Wooten’s daughter took her mother to Washington to tour the White House and the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture. They were hoping to run into President Obama, but he was out of the building in a meeting.

“I would have loved to meet him,” Ms. Wooten said. “I think he’s been great.”