During the 2002 election, I remember that I was still feeling some slight concern upon entering the polls. I was still wondering if the mess, the third-world first-time election mess that had occurred in Florida in 2000, could somehow happen here in Woodbury, Minnesota. In 2002 there was a lot of strange stuff going on, with Senator Wellstone's death just weeks before the election.
According to Mary Kiffmeyer, the absentee ballots for those who had already voted for Senator Wellstone would not be counted. A lawsuit was filed, with the result of the MN Supreme Court decision being that the counties could send new ballots to those absentee voters that requested them. According to Elizabeth Brauma's Law Review Article, "although 11,381 votes were cast and counted for Wellstone, the difference between Coleman and Mondale was over 49,450 votes." Therefore, new absentee ballots would not have been enough to make up the difference. (Still there is some concern that not all counties followed procedure and counted the votes... see this article from the Star Tribune, Some counties fail to report Wellstone votes.
I believe that every vote should count. I especially believe that our soldiers' votes should be counted as a top priority in the process. If that means holding the results until their results are included, then so be it. We owe it to the men and women fighting on our behalf, far from home. I believe that all officials should follow the law.
So I signed up to be an election judge for the 2004 election. At first I did not think that I would have the time, and I could not make it in time to training for the primary election, but I was able to train for the General Election.
During training, it sounded like this year there could be a lot of issues with voting challengers, media, and outside observers watching the election. Thankfully at least in my precinct, it was not that crazy.
There was a good turnout in City of Woodbury, Precinct 12. Prior to Nov. 2, there were 3400 or so registered voters, nearly another 20% or 700 voters registers election day. Over 3000 votes were made during the day.
The first part of the morning I was assigned as a Greeter, which was a position more about directing people to the right parts of the room. Also, part of the job was to keep the room under control. It mean controlling the entrance so that people did not rush in. The longest line was the ballot line, so really, I tried to control the length of that.
What I learned is that when you say the same thing hundreds of time during the day, you get efficient at what you are saying. You try to leave out any tonguetwisters, and to say what you can as efficiently as possible.
For most of the rest of the day, I was assigned as a roster judge. I liked that position the best, I got to ask people their name and address, and often their birthdate to confirm, and get them a receipt. It was interesting that one of the election judges was a little confused and thought that you had to ask for their ID, but I was going off of the legally required information. I think that the other judges were also following my lead in only requesting the information required in the Election Judge guide.
At the end of the day after the polls closed, I helped take down the equipment and signs. I felt a little more useful in helping to double check precinct addresses for mail registrations, and I learned how to do duplicate ballots when the original would not be read by the machine (about 15 or so had to be rescored).
After that day I have a better feel for really what the election judges do, and how things can run. I feel it is the duty of every citizen to help out if they can, and so I'll probably help the next election.
You get paid as an election judge, and I kept thinking I am going to get something election-related for my son, with whatever money I get. One of the women said that she was going to, "spend it all on shoes."
Posted by ledlogic at November 7, 2004 10:25 PM