Nick at Saintpaulitan talks about his experience as an election judge and lists a few things that he thinks would make polling places operate much more smoothly. Basically, more volunteers…
Between me and the librarian, we registered 236 new voters during the course of the day — approximately 118 each. Many of these people had to be vouched for by voters already registered in the precinct — a process that basically doubles the amount of paperwork involved.
…and some modern technology.
God only knows how many people didn’t get to vote Tuesday because I didn’t have access to Google Maps.
I did a little bit of digging into being an election judge, and then abandoned it because I actually had to pick up the phone and call someone at Hennepin County to volunteer instead of being able to register online. Poor excuse, I know. Worth it for the next time around, though. If the government’s gonna choose their battles, I think they’d do better to invest in some of Nick’s suggestions over making it a hair easier for lazy schmucks like me to sign up to volunteer on election day
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I read before the election that state-wide we had too many people volunteer as election judges for the first time eve), and that some communities (including Minneapolis and St. Paul) were turning people away.
And at the polling place where I was a challenger for a few hours, they had big maps and were able to provide directions to people who were at the wrong precinct. They also had a really cool satellite picture of the precinct showing the 100-foot radius in which campaigning was not allowed.
So maybe polling place preparedness depends on the location?
Sarah, did you volunteer in your own precinct, or were you assigned to a different place?
Probably it is location-dependent. I was not at my own precinct, but I was only a couple miles away from where I live.
The precinct where I was stationed was only a few blocks wide and a few blocks long — it ws quite possible that you could live less than 2 blocks away from the polling place, but have to vote somewhere else, so there were lots of people who were in the wrong place. But the judges seemed to know the area well and could tell people where to go.