Primary election

Today was the primary election day here in Montana.  This year was 'redistricting' after the 2020 census changes.  Our county added 14 new precincts and we are now up to 56 precincts.  All most precinct boundaries were altered.  We had a large population boom between 2010 and 2020.   My previous precinct was moved further west.  Me and my team didn't want to travel way further west to manage that precinct.

The election department moved a new precinct into our polling place, and me and my team took over managing that precinct.  The new precinct is east of the other two precincts at our polling place.  And my precinct has county residents and Kalispell residents.   So my precinct was a little more complicated to manage, and I got two more election judges to do.  My team went from 5 to 7 judges.   But we got it done.  And had a good day doing so, even though some judges had more work than other judges.

Since election day is a long day - for me 5:45 am to 9:45 pm - I and the other two chief judges at our polling place do some general setup the night before so that we have less to do in the morning and don't have to start even earlier in the morning to be ready when the polls open at 7 am.  We have enough to do in the morning to add and/or remove and track seals on certain items, and to make sure each judge has the supplies they need to run the election.

Here is a photo of our general setup the night before.  This is my precinct, the other two precincts are to the left and right of this photo.  The voting booths in back are shared by all three precincts.