Chicago Republicans

About a month before the February 22, 2011 Chicago election I received an e-mail from the Chicago GOP regarding training, from the Board of Election Commissioners for the City of Chicago (BEC), to work as an election judge.  I’d always wondered what an election judge did; I knew they weren’t actually “judging” anything and that made me even more curious.

Being a college teacher I’m lucky enough to not work Tuesdays and Thursdays this semester so submitted my application.  To my surprise, not long after I received a notice from the BEC notifying me of acceptance and the upcoming training dates.  Election judges receive an additional $50 compensation if they attend the training session.  I was surprised that training was not mandatory; if you can’t make it to a session you are directed to “read the manual.”  I’m not kidding – then I became doubtful about the entire process.

I wondered if I’d witness shenanigans of which, by reputation, Chicago has plenty – especially when you consider the storied past of some elections.  To my surprise, the training could not have been more thorough and professional.  The instructors delivered a lecture on setting up the polling place, took questions and engaged the audience.  They then directed us to a room where in groups we set up mock polling stations.  We returned for a lecture on casting ballots.  Again they asked the election judges to be questions to keep them interested and took many questions.  We returned to that same lab where each of us cast a mock ballot.  Each one had something wrong with it at which point we were asked, “OK, you’re the election judge, what do you do now?”  We finished with a lecture on tearing down the station which was followed by – you guessed it – tearing down the mock polling place we’d set up.

A letter from the BEC notified me that I would be one of two Republican election judges working with three Democrat counterparts.  I learned from the training that precincts are given either three Republicans and two Democrats or two Republicans and three Democrats based on the odd or even rule.

The day went off without any major issues.  The most valuable lesson I learned was that election judges are just citizens working that day for the BEC; the pay is nominal and they just want to do their part.  I admit I’d never thought about it before or just assumed they were city or county employees.  I could tell by the intonation of some voters, when things didn’t run perfectly, that they assumed we were full-time employees of some government organization.

To my dismay, the other Republican did not show up.  Which means, of course, had I not there would have been no GOP representative in my precinct.  As such, I encourage any conservative reading this blog to volunteer during the next election.  You could even be a roving poll watcher for a particular candidate if you’d rather do that.

Of the three Democratic election judges, two didn’t look old enough to vote – I believe they were part of some high school initiative to encourage young people to get involved.  The other Democratic election judge, however, could not have been more professional, thorough and downright fun to be with.  In fact, we’ve spoken on the phone since then and, I think, will even be good friends hanging out every now and then.  The Polling Place Administrator, basically the “tech guy” for the equipment, did a fine job as well.

I must say, from 5:00 AM to 8:30 PM when my new good friend and I delivered the ballots I never witnessed anything that could be construed as dishonest or an attempt to sway the election.  I’ve come to the conclusion that doing so would be extremely difficult – you would have to have every election judge “in on the fix” which just isn’t feasible.

It was a long day for which I’ll receive very little monetary compensation.  But, the rewards far exceeded the time I invested.  In the next election, please, consider working as an election judge for the GOP.  I think you’ll find the experience as rewarding as I did.