Under the story about the Nunda 19 election judge’s experience is the following from “Disappointed in our system.”
The writer points out the difference in pay between election judges and technical people and suggests the hiring technical people may have been influenced by patronage:
As an election judge, I served in four elections.
The first three while Katherine Schultz held office.
I was contacted in January to serve as an election judge.
I didn’t know, nor, was I told the responsibilities were changing among judges; technical and deputy registrar were now included.
I learned of the changes during this years training session when Meghan Honea directed all tech people to go into another room for training.
In previous years election judges were responsible for all duties; administrative and technical.
I contacted and confirmed with other judges, they also didn’t know changes were made.
The tech person assigned to our precinct didn’t know how to set up the touch screen or tabulator machines; another judge set the tabulator machine the night before and Ed Gill came in hours after the polls had opened to get the touch screen working and to put correct labels in the E-PollBooks.
Throughout most of the day our tech person sat in back doing her school homework and was no help at all.
Speaking with other judges I was told their tech people didn’t serve any purpose.
They mostly sat around doing nothing.
The wife of a committeemen, currently in office, who served as a tech, was asked by a judge if she would change paper in one of the machines, she told that judge she didn’t know how.
A comment our tech person made when asked to do something said she did not receive in-depth training.
I arrived at my precinct at 5:00 a.m. and didn’t leave until 9:30 p.m., it was a very long day.
I recently found out how much the tech people are going to be paid versus the judges who served in this very stressful day.
it is so unfair and angers me that election judges are paid $25.00 to attend training and $140.00 for serving.
To those of you whom served as judges, the tech people receive, $75.00 for attending training and $225.00 for showing up on Election Day.
I only know of a handful that didn’t serve any purpose and will be paid $300.00 for doing absolutely nothing.
I agree, every judge served should be asked how they really feel.
I would like to know who approved this and how it could happen considering the budget crisis Illinois is currently in.
Is it nepotism?
How many tech people know someone who works for McHenry County?
Thank goodness for these letters.
Hopefully it gets sent to the State Representative and State Senator representing that precinct and the County Board.
Lots more precincts, hopefully we’ll get more letters about what went wrong and where.
And the dippity doo gets deeper.
I replied under the Nunda 19 election judge’s experience story of my experience on election day.
The County Clerk ran several half page ads in the Northwest Herald to recruit election judges, early election judges, technical judges and deputy registrars.
I have set up the equipment in my precinct since I became a judge in 2007 and applied to be a technical judge because of the higher pay, which was listed in the Northwest Herald ad.
I took the technical judge training class and also the regular judge class since the tech class didn’t teach us much about the computers.
In class it was stated that the technical judge would be stationed at the ballot box during the election.
I was an election judge in Hartland 2.
Our technical judge also was a high school student who was not called upon to do very much throughout the day.
When necessary, he assisted with equipment but we didn’t require much assistance.
He was not told to be stationed at the ballot box.
He did tell us that a high school teacher encouraged his class to apply for the positions.
While I think it’s wonderful to get young people involved in the electoral process, unfortunately this young man will be in college in the fall and unavailable to serve at the November election.
So that $75 in training was for one election only in his case.
The training class that I attended focused on the operation of the poll books and did not cover most of the other procedures for the day, such as opening and closing the polls.
Since I had trained and served as a judge in two previous elections, I did not feel short-changed, but I did not realize how many first-time judges worked this election.
Hartland 2 had two experienced judges and two new ones, but many precincts had all new judges.
Training, communication and basic organization were huge problems in this election.
I don’t think this was done out of malice but out of a lack of planning; however, the disorganization was so bad that the potential for errors, intentional or unintentional, was enormous.
Algonquin 43 is a split precinct for the State Representative races.
About a third is for the 52nd (McSweeney) and the 66th was for the retiring State Representative Mr. Tryon.
We have two confirmed cases where people who should have got the 66th ballot did not get the 66th ballot.
Instead they got the 52nd ballot.
While their candidate for State Representative won – they were disenfranchised because the local judges didn’t know that their precinct was a split precinct.
As for the county board getting to the election issue – just listen to the last board meeting – its all you need to know.
Where are the feds?
Does McHenry not have the correct demographics?
Other than providing the Clerk with more money, what can the County Board about an inept Clerk?
The voters can’t do anything either.
YOU ARE STUCK FOR WITH CLERK UNTIL DEC. 2018!!!