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Midge's avatar

I’ve election-judged before. Election rules around here require parity between Republican and Democratic election judges, meaning volunteers willing to wear the R badge are typically in demand (and volunteers for the R badge who aren’t kooks should be even more appreciated).

Still, I don’t know how this year’s healthcare and childcare will go for me yet.

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rlritt's avatar

Interesting. Where I was an election judge there was only one Democrat and 5 Republicans. One woman said she would sign in as a Democrat since she really considered herself an Independent.

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Midge's avatar

It seems pretty common in many counties for parity to be so difficult to achieve that it’s kindasorta faked.

One spot I worked had a D already wearing an R badge, meaning I got a D badge that day. We had enough to do that even the small step of switching badges didn’t seem worth the interruption.

The parity rule is intended to keep election judges from conspiring to commit shenanigans, so it’s not ideal for judges to wear the label of a party they in fact oppose. But it’s even less ideal to refuse to operate the polling place because parity’s been missed.

Typically, the not-exactly-by-the-book stuff that happens at a polling place isn’t shenanigans, just having to adapt to less-than-ideal circumstances. I’m more of a stickler for the book than is usual, but not to the point of pointless obstructionism.

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rlritt's avatar

And in terms of working polls, people usually do that because they are interested elections being run well. I felt sorry for those two women who worked the Georgia election and getting attacked. I've had days where we were counting ballots until midnight after starting at 5:00 am. No fun. And as you know, they don't get paid very much.

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Midge's avatar

I was horrified by the unjustified accusations made toward election workers in 2020 and the harassment that followed. The indecency of such fanciful accusations still galls me, as does the Republican party’s permissive attitude toward such pernicious fantasizing, and ultimate lack of solidarity with Republican election workers who knew better. If party discipline won’t shut down such fantasizing, what is party discipline for?

The very first election I worked, an elderly election judge began throwing paper away as soon as polls closed, while we were still processing absentee ballots. She accidentally threw some absentee ballots away before they were counted. (There’s a reason the rulebook delays disposal of ancillary cards and papers until after absentee ballots are tallied — this.) I was willing to stay past midnight to find and count them, but the number of missing ballots was well below the margin of victory for any result at that polling place, and I was outvoted.

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