My Journey as an Election Judge: How It Began

This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Written by Shelia Conroy: Wherever you are on the political spectrum, it has been a tumultuous year – make that two years. Where to turn? As a naturalized citizen of some 25 years, I have faithfully voted in every election, both national and local. But now I felt this was just not quite enough. I can’t remember where and how I thought of it but decided that I would be an Election Volunteer.

Right, as newly retired, I had visions of me standing helpfully by, pointing voters to the way in and the way out of the polling station. Maybe with time for coffee or tea in the slow moments on polling day. So I called Heidi at the Boulder Election Commission. No, right now they had no vacancies for Unaffiliated or Independent persons such as I. And I had thought that my non-allegiance would make me so valuable. But it turns out that there are very strict rules about the sharing of election positions between the two major parties. The first choice of volunteers must come from Democratic or Republican registered voters. And it must be 50:50. At some point, they scrape the bottom of the barrel and that was when I was called up.

Down to Boulder (I live in Longmont) to have an interview. Luckily it was one of the mornings I was running with my group in Boulder, so I didn’t have to make a double Diagonal journey. Very pleasant people asked me some job interview questions. I had to think carefully if I was happy to work in a sometimes chaotic environment. With a career life of close to 50 years, I am definitely sure there had been some chaos in my professional life. And could I deal with difficult people? Hell, I managed a technical support department for a software company for several years – are there anything but difficult people?

Next was a sobering experience – a data entry exam. Take your time the nice young people said. We value accuracy more than speed. After some very careful entry of test names and addresses, they took my cell phone and found the stopwatch. Who knew? Not speedy, but I took time to make sure everything was accurate. 100%! Not very fast, but I felt a youthful joy at being successful.

I guess I passed The Test as I was scheduled to return the following week to meet with HR (Human Resources or the Personnel Department for us oldies). Meanwhile, I received an email with an attachment of some 13 pages of forms to read and fill out. If I didn’t remember my social security number by now, I certainly soon did. And what did PERA (Public Employees Retirement Association) have to do with volunteering for an election?

To the DMV office on one of the alternative mornings, and I did not have to take a number, but went through the special gate to the HR sanctum. This meant waiting not very long with some other volunteers of varying levels of experience. One lady described how she was at election HQ (?) last time until 2:00 a.m. Her job had been to verify signatures, and one signature remained unverified. They worked until that time to ensure that all was kosher (is this OK?). Very impressive voting security.

And that’s all. I found out that I had to register with PERA as I will actually get paid for my work. We were told to make sure we showed up in two weeks for the four half days of training. I found out that I was going to be a Voter Service and Polling Center (VSPC) Judge. At this point, I knew there would not be too many coffee breaks and that this was serious business. If I was unsure about this, reading the training instructions hammered the point home: If you wish to eat during training, please bring your own snacks and refreshments. You are expected to attend all days of training. So now I have to make sure I show up for my first training day in Boulder next Monday. I am apprehensive and excited. But I have a new RTD discount ride card and I am ready for anything.