Sunday, March 27, 2011

Election Judge Training

The difference between $95 for election judging and $145 is attending a three hour training session. A host of dates were offered for training and we settled on this afternoon.

The director of the election process is J.E. Myers, a stout and twinkly-eyed woman with the energy of a symphony conductor. I could just as easily imagine her stumping for political office, which of course she probably did in supporting Kathy Michael for her current county clerk position.

I was impressed that Kathy was there herself to greet all who came, and stayed until the end. She joked about falling asleep during the training, but she was way off.

What an event!

Instead of a Power Point presentation, they'd solicited actors from a local community theater to put on a variety of skits. Real life cases of election day "don'ts" ranging from the surprisingly illegal to the clearly outrageous (the poll watcher who propped her feet up on the election table and then threw a dangerous fit when it was suggested that her actions were out of line).

The skits were table-slappers, and other improvements in the process drew applause:

- overnight crews setting up the tables and signs the night before
- tech crews available on-call to fix machines or bring food
- a special station to resolve problem cases
- redesigned drop-off procedures

The time passed quickly, and we were sent off with a dash of patriotic bravado. "We are the world's best at running a democratic election, and you are part of it." We did everything but sing America the Beautiful.

Election Day is April 6. Come one, come all!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you get the acting recruiters card? Could be he's looking for people to play the part of the father that allows his 3 yo unruly child rip down all the booth curtains for the next training session! Sounds like fun! Learning thru doing. Learning thru humor. My two favorite highways to sharpening the brain!!

Joe McDonald said...

That's just the kind of dad I'd be... a natural fit!