April 27th, 2002 was the day of my wedding. I thought I had covered almost all my bases, but I stopped at Schnucks to get a card for the altar boys. As I pulled out of my parking space, with the rain coming down, a driver on the other side of the aisle pulled out and backed into the side of my car. I was tuxless and was supposed to be at the church in 45 minutes.

Every election day is a little like that. You do all you can to prepare for the day, but things happen that just can’t be anticipated. However, we respond to as many of the twists and turns of election day as possible when they happen, and then we try to smooth out those twists in the future. In the end, I think we’ve had very successful elections, even when faced with issues as serious as a fire in a polling place. This post will let people know that we’ve taken the issue of lines at polling places seriously and lay out some of the things we’ve done to alleviate them.

First, we seek input at all times about how to improve the election process. For example, we have a meeting after every election of a citizen’s advisory committee to review what happened at the election and to talk about ways to improve it. We have also sent surveys to election judges soliciting their feedback and suggestions. We have forms available on our counter and on our website for the public to give us suggestions and comments. After the November 2000 election, with all its controversy, we had a meeting at Brookens that included not just the citizen’s advisory committee, but election judges as well as anyone in the public. More than 100 people attended and many ideas and suggestions were made that have been manifested in subsequent elections. Here are some of the ideas that have been developed through that input and through the work of my staff.

We’ve assigned more election judges than ever to polling places. In the November 2004 election we had 663 Election judges working. We had 17 polling places in which we placed 7 judges and 3 polling places where we placed 9 judges. I requested additional money from the County Board for these judges and to their credit they provided it.

We also made a change after the 2000 election in how we deal with extra judges. In that election and previous elections even before I became County Clerk, we asked unassigned judges to be on “standby” status. This involved receiving a small payment of 10 or 15 dollars to be near your phone on election morning prepared to go to a precinct that was short of judges because of a late vacancy. Unfortunately, we had extra judges in November 2000 who did not want to serve as standby judges.

In the following elections we changed that policy. Instead of asking people to wait at home on standby, we agreed to pay them a full election judge wage and have them arrive in our office at 5 a.m. election morning. In November of 2004 we had 10 people agree to be standby judges in our office. We used them in the early morning as additional help to answer the phones. If there was a large polling place that had a late cancellation, we sent an extra judge out immediately. Later, as we saw problems develop in particular precincts, we sent them out to alleviate lines. For example, we sent two additional judges to Cunningham 1 to deal with long lines there. We don’t automatically assign every judge who wants to work because it might result in extra judges serving in precincts where we didn’t need them. Instead, we wait to send them out to precincts as we identify needs. And we were able to address problems that could not have been anticipated prior to election day.

A question was raised about why some people who were willing to be judges may not have been assigned. I will address that in another post.

I believe that we have dramatically improved our election judge training over the years. Training judges, who have a wide range of experience, is challenging. Having well trained election judges is critical in reducing lines.

Our election judge manual has been updated after every election. Not an election goes by in which we don’t receive a suggestion from election judges about the manual. We’ve tried to improve the index, make it easier to find answers to difficult questions, and easier to find answers to the most common questions, especially for new judges.

We also have worked to improve our forms to make them more user friendly. Unfortunately, the legal requirements of these forms make them difficult to simplify. Nevertheless, we have made improvements, and we have another on the way for the March election. We take and receive suggestions from election judges about how to better organize the supplies at the polling place. For example, a few judges suggested alphabet tabs on the signature verification records to speed up the process of finding a voter.

Many of our judges have taken a great step toward reducing lines by setting up the polling place the night before the election. In a busy election, a line can form almost immediately with the first wave of 6 a.m. voters. This can be exacerbated if the judges have not been able to get everything set up in time. By putting up signs and laying out supplies the previous evening the judges are better prepared for the opening of the polling place.

We have worked to improve the layout of polling places. Lines in polling places can be minimized when the polling place is organized better. We work to improve that when we find difficulties. Voters are often the ones to let us know, and sometimes we actually change the polling place layout during election day.

We have also moved a number of polling places to make it easier for judges and voters. A great example was the polling place at Central High School. The room we were given for voting was the vestibule going into the gymnasium. If you’ve been there you can imagine how crowded that could be. (It actually used to have two precincts in the 80’s.) We moved that polling place to the Holy Cross parish center which is more spacious and easier to set up in order to facilitate a smooth running operation.

Maps were added to polling places on campus to help students locate their correct polling place. We also made maps available to campus organizations to inform their members and volunteers.

Our voter guide has been helpful in reducing lines. The voter guide has maps of the precincts and answers questions that would otherwise take the time of the judges.

Our website too has helped reduce lines. The ability to look up your polling place helps reduce the number of people waiting in line at the wrong polling place (and taking the time of judges who need to find the voter’s correct polling place). The ability to get your specific specimen ballot also helps reduce lines by moving people more quickly through the voting process. Tens of thousands of voters have made use of this service and hundreds bring a specimen ballot from our website to the polling place. Many people have told me how they appreciated not being surprised at the polling place by an unfamiliar ballot issue.

The Help America to Vote Act requires that first time voters who register by mail are required to show ID at the polling place (more on this requirement later). Knowing that this could create confusion and delays at polling places, we mailed a card to every voter who was affected by this so they could be prepared before coming to the polls. We also worked with the Secretary of State to compare our voter registration rolls to their records to verify the identities of thousands of these voters prior to election day, obviating the checking of identification on election day.

We have changed our voter ID card to better highlight the polling place. We found that many people were not even aware that their polling place was on their voter ID card. We moved that critical information to the top left portion of the card. Once again, getting people to the correct polling place helps reduce lines.

We are now encouraging our election judges to bring cell phones to the polling place and reimbursing them for their usage. In the past, if there was a problem with a voter that necessitated calling our office, the judge quite often had to go to a phone located away from their station. Now, most of our precincts have at least one cell phone that can be used. When the judges need to contact our office, the judge at the first station, who distributes blank applications, makes the call while still distributing the applications. This allows the voting process to continue without delay for the other voters.

Similarly, we have increased the number of phone lines into our office to handle the influx of calls and to ensure that judges can get through to someone to get a quick answer to their questions.

We have a number of polling places in which two precincts are located. At busy elections, we try to place a greeter at the polling place who can help direct voters to the correct line. We also have signs and maps to assist voters in those instances as well.

We thoroughly test all our equipment before it goes out on election day. We often need every machine we have to keep a precinct running smoothly so it is critical that it is in good working order before it even gets to the polling place.

If history is a guide, this next election will be followed up by additional great ideas from our staff, voters, and election judges that will result in continued improvements to election day.

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