The following comes from a comment by Marlene, who identifies herself as an election judge from Hartland Township Precinct 2:

One wonders if McHenry County Board member Carolyn Schofield believes election day problems represented merely a “hiccup,” as this Chicago Tribune story on Sunday describes McHenry County Clerk Mary McClellan’s description.

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.