Election judge

I served as an election judge for the November 4 election. I was assigned to a different precinct for this election. I am not sure why, whether it was because I was in North Dakota when the initial assignments were made, or whether the chief judge in my former precinct wanted her friend back as a judge. During the primary election I had filled in at the last minute when her friend had to back out due to another commitment.

My precinct this time was in Kila, almost 15 miles west of Kalispell. Initially the county election department asked me to work in Trego but that was over 30 miles from my place. Too far.

My fellow judges and I met at 6 am at the Kila Country Church where the election would be held. The polls opened at 7 am. It was early but I got there by 6 am. There wasn't much traffic on the roads and I wondered if my fellow drivers were other election judges on the way to their polls. It was early enough that most of the traffic lights were still set to blink either red or yellow.

Having driven through Kila once in my life I had never been to the church. In the dark I almost missed it. Fortunately I saw the "Vote here" sign on the church as I drove by. The church building was new and modern, and as Kila is a small town I expected an old traditional looking church.

Eileen (our chief judge), her husband Lou, and Naomi were inside preparing the polls. Shortly after I arrived our last judge, Ted, arrived. All these judges had worked together for a number of elections and therefore they knew what they were doing and were efficient about it. This was different than my previous election teams.

I was youngest judge. Lou was quite elderly and older than Eileen so initially I didn't realize they were husband and wife. Naomi was also in her 60s or more likely 70s. Ted seemed to be closer in age to me as he appeared to be in his 50s. The others kidded Ted about his appetite and I found out why. It seemed like he was always eating. For all he ate I would have expected him to be heavy.

Lou was old enough that - even though he had a dry sense of humor -I sometimes wondered if his mind was wandering. He also had the slow speech some of the pretty old people have. He was the judge that handed out the ballots and gave the instructions to fill in the ovals correctly and make sure to vote on both sides of the ballot. Some people politely waited as he slowly spoke but knowing how to vote just wanted the ballot and be on their way. As time went on Lou, perhaps to save his voice, would look at the older voters and ask "You know how to vote, don't you?". When they said "Yes" he handed them a ballot and saved his voice.

Before handing out the ballot Lou had to tell me the ballot number for me to mark in the poll book against the person's name. This was to keep track of the ballot in case the voter spoiled the ballot and needed a new one. This happened only once. One couple was suspicious as to why we were doing this thinking this is how the government knew how they voted. We had to explain, once they voted and before putting the ballot in the machine to be counted, the stub at the bottom of the ballot that had the ballot number would be torn off and tossed into another box so no one would know how they voted.

Lou also had to stamp each ballot before handing it out. The stamp was red ink and his hand was red within a few hours.

Because we were in a church everything religious was to be covered. A portrait of Jesus was taken off the wall and placed down a side hallway out of the way. Eileen found a large tablecloth and covered another religious item that could not be taken off the wall.

The pastor showed up early afternoon. This being a country church he looked like any other rancher. In fact he and another church member had been out elk hunting earlier that day. They didn't get anything as the weather was rainy/snowy and definitely snowy higher up the mountains. They quit hunting because it was snowing so hard they couldn't see much.

The church had a small kitchen and the pastor made us a pot of coffee. I don't drink coffee so he made hot water and I had my choice of tea or apple spice mix. This helped as the temperature in the church was set low and was a little cool. I was fine but the older people felt cold. It didn't help that when the polls opened at 7 am the line stretched out the door for 20 minutes or so and the door was held open.

As this team of judges was efficient we were ready before 7 am - another difference from my prior experiences where we could have used a couple more minutes to get ready. Being ready this time was good as we had people waiting to vote 20 minutes before the polls opened.

This election was busy as we almost always had someone waiting to vote. It did slow down the last hour. I guess people were in the mood to vote early and not wait until the last minute.

Our precinct, being rural, covered a large area. To help some people the election department had another small polling place in Lakeside which is about 14 miles south of Kalispell.

Still we had one woman from Niarada vote in our precinct. Wow! Niarada is a long way from Kila. I would have thought she would have requested an absentee ballot to save her from such a long drive.

Niarada is represented by the A on the map. Kila and Lakeside are also shown on the map.

Our precinct was an odd shape. People in Kila living north of Hwy 2 voted in another precinct. Other people in Kila voted elsewhere. People living Marion, MT voted in our precinct. *shrug* Go figure.

We did have one glitch in the beginning when our voting machine would not work. Somehow the card that ran our machine was for another precinct and therefore would not recognize any ballots. A hour later we got the correct card and Eileen and Ted fed the earlier ballots through the machine to be counted.

This team never had to handle a provisional ballot. For this election they ran out of provisional envelopes. Eileen called and asked the election department for more and was told they were running out. Eileen got some envelopes from the church pastor and we used them to seal the ballots for privacy for later verification and counting.

We had a young (mid 20s?) couple who were suspicious of the voting machine and wanted their ballot hand counted. The husband teased his wife by calling her a Democrat. From her reaction she obviously wasn't a Democrat. So they must have been on the other side of the political spectrum. Hand counting ballots was a new thing and we ended up with 3 ballots for hand counting later by the election department. Another 20 something man had requested his ballot be hand counted.

No campaign materials or buttons, etc was allowed in the polling place. An overweight woman wore an Obama t-shirt and Eileen asked her to zip up her sweatshirt in order to cover up her t-shirt until she voted and left the polling place.

"No I won't!" she loudly told us.

Eileen again politely asked her and again she was indignant and refused. Eileen informed her it was against the law to have campaign related material in the polling place. She again refused with a tone of "you can't make me". Eileen told her she can go over and read the prohibition on a poster we had taped to the wall and told her she would have to leave the polling place if she wouldn't zip up her sweatshirt to cover the Obama t-shirt. She grumbled but reluctantly zipped up her t-shirt. We all noticed that when she left she already had her t-shirt most way unzipped again. *sigh*

Other people with McCain or Obama pins complied and removed their pins when we asked them to do so.

With the slow last half hour we were able to begin preparing for the poll closure at 8 pm. Combined with the other team members efficiency we were out of there by 8:45 pm. The earliest I had finished on other elections was 9:30 pm.

As I got out my glasses for sharpening my vision for night driving one lens popped out. One small screw popped out and was lost in the carpet forever. I don't need the glasses; they are just nice. I took them back to Walmart a few days later and they replaced the screw and fixed my glasses for free.

We had 643 voters which is a few hundred more than the precinct I previously worked at. I noticed the demographics at this precinct was older voters and more blue collar working people than the Whitefish precinct. Only one or two hot chicks. and they were not alone. I also noticed that quite a number of people looked older than their age when they got into their 40s and older. For people around my age I began to ask myself, "I don't look that old, do I?" Yikes!!

All in all things went smooth and it was a good election.