Jan 05 2010
Taking the Job Seriously
I think we run excellent elections in Champaign County. There are a host of reasons. I believe it starts with the extraordinary staff here in the County Clerk’s office. But a large part of the success of Champaign County elections is a result of our election judges.
No one is perfect, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try. And virtually all of our judges are trying. As evidence, you can look at our election judge training this month. Election judges are required to take training every two years, a cycle that begins with the even year general election. Once that training is completed, a judge doesn’t have to take additional training until the next general election. That means, most judges are not required to take training for the upcoming primary election.
Nevertheless, we still hold schools. This year, when we mailed our election judges information about the upcoming election, we let them know about an important change regarding voter applications and strongly encouraged them to sign up for class, even if they weren’t required to.
Our judges have responded well. Currently we have 375 judges signed up for training. 368 of those judges have already gone through training and are doing the additional training purely voluntarily.
In the bustle of election day, mistakes can happen. Every election we try to do more to prevent those mistakes. The number of judges going through training should give every voter confidence that their election judges are doing their best to bring them a fair, honest, and efficient election day.
As one of those 375 judges who are trained but are voluntarily taking the additional training:
To me, it’s a refresher course. Admittedly, not every judge reads the manual every day; it’s a great way to “bone up” on everything and maybe “knock a few brain cells loose” and jog our memories on things that are not covered in the classes.
It’s a great way of doing things — an efficient way to keep everybody up to speed. Also, if there is a major procedural change between general elections [such as this "undervote" farce], we can get the “straight dope” and have it fresh in our minds.
Now, if we can just get the SecState computer to talk to County computer about moter-voter. . .