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Getting Involved
As many here have exhorted us to do more than simply whine or express outrage at “The Man” or “The System” of unfair, stolen elections, fraud, deceit, and chicanery, I have stepped up. You are reading here, the first public acknowledgment of my being assigned, trained, and committing to be a precinct Judge of Elections.
I had attended a Poll Watcher training a few weeks ago, and received a notice that our county was short over 700 workers for our primary this coming Tuesday. So I applied. This afternoon, was informed that I was assigned the position of Judge of Elections. Did an online training this evening, and officially I am ready to go. Unofficially, I will print and read the elections handbook with all of the arcane rules to make sure I am better prepared. This really is a significant responsibility with a lot of procedural details that I need to attend to.
The training was simple, on the quizzes after each section I only got one answer wrong, which I feel was a sneaky answer, if not outright trickery. They changed the color of one of the bags from purple to black, as in where do you put the unused ballots at the end of the day, and had no right answer… I selected the black bag, and was scolded that the ballots go in the purple bag, since there is no black bag… the choices were the yellow bag (for used ballots), the black bag, or neither. I knew it wasn’t the yellow bag…
The big deal is what will Pennsylvania do this Tuesday. Trump endorsed Oz, I don’t like Oz. In the dictionary, the definition of slimy has a picture of Oz for representation. I really like Kathy Barnette, but have been barraged with an onslaught of anti-Kathy propaganda recently, which I believe originated from other Republicans. The Democrats hate McCormick, they send me hourly messages that a vote for McCormick is a vote for Trump. What’s not to like about that!?
I am still leaning Kathy. Bongino is trying to set up interviews for all three frontrunners. That might help clarify the situation.
Bottom line, it was uber easy to be hired to be a fricckkin Judge of Elections! You should do it to. get involved. true the vote
Published in Elections
Our state has all-mail elections. In 2016 I did signature verification, and it was fun and interesting. I decided that it just isn’t worth it, since the DemocRats totally own Western Washington.
I actually was hoping to be assigned to one of the precincts where they get 123% more voters than recorded populations, and the tally is 100% D, 0% R. But I was assigned my actual local precinct, where I will vote. Good to meet neighbors. But it is a mostly Red precinct, not much chance of blatant fraud.
Nonetheless, props to you for stepping up.
Good luck, I followed a similar path to help in the operation of a precinct and upon being interview was elevated to the Chief Republican Judge (Maryland has one of each flavor for each polling location). I think it had more to do with my computer skills, than my presumed outstanding character.
It is a long day starting a 5 am, and ends when I drive the vote tally thumb drives to the Anne Arundel county election office around 9:30 pm (except for the time the governor kept the polls open 2 more hours for “weather”. I think it paid $220 dollars (vs $150 for a poll workers with much few hours and responsibilities).
After 12 years I tossed in the towel, it was clear that Baltimore city, Baltimore and Montgomery counties always seemed to have the ability to overwhelm, conveniently late in the game, the rest of the state. Baltimore is so corrupt it take a fairly overwhelming response from the rest of the state to keep them from ruining the America’s first and only Catholic colony. Granted we seem to produce “good Catholics” like Madam Pelosi I feel the state is beyond salvation.
If it was not for the federal work force and their near recession proof employment base the state would start looking like the basket case of California.
There is a history of election mischief in our county. This year more people are paying attention.
Your state must have polls to watch. How old fashioned.
I’m surprised that they didn’t do in-person training…then again, maybe I shouldn’t be. I’ve been working elections since 2008 and a Judge since 2010 and still am required to attend training every election. I worked the Texas Primary in March and did training, and then will do training again for the election this fall. All in-person training. Out county has a great system where we have all of our procedures written up for each activity we will take or could take in a day with the step by step tasks for each one. Its a great help for us because when we are setting up, or doing a provisional ballot, or cancelling a mail-in ballot we can follow the checklist and ensure that the correct process is followed.
There are a ton of rules that you need to follow, and having to find the process in the book is a pain when it isn’t in a binder with tabs that makes it easier. Since this is a job that we don’t do every day, having it all written out for you makes it easier and limits mistakes when things get hectic.
But BIG KUDOS to you for signing up to work. We are always looking for poll workers, and its a rough job where you end up taking a fair amount of disdain (not really abuse, just disdain) for a LONG day. Yeah, we get paid (a bit), but a 14 hour day isn’t fun. I hope you enjoy it. I don’t know how PA runs these things, but get to know your election clerk or whomever runs that for your county. Their job is even more thankless.
I am due to being a poll worker on Tuesday for an election for the Coconino County Community College. This is a trial run for the Primary Election in August. I will be posting about my experience, and I will see how it measures up with your experience.