A PRESIDING TEXAS ELECTION JUDGE!
One of my friends, name excluded for rights of sanity, sent me their schedule for performing the duties of an Election Judge in Texas for the November 2016 election. I enjoyed early voting the first day with no lines, paper ballots and no confrontations possible with the Sheriff’s office next door.
They will be the Presiding Judge and will have an Alternate Judge and have three clerks to handle the crowd, this will be in one of the top ten cities by population in the United States. The following is their schedule description for the day.
It’s a full day from rising at 5 AM, getting to the polling place at 6 am and setting up the “Ivotronic” electronic voting machines, setting up the PC and logging into the host county election data base, putting up numerous, “Bi-Lingual, VOTE AQUI” signs around the restricted perimeter, all manner of informational signs and posters, in English and Spanish, then blocking some of the hall ways, so as to prevent all the kids, parents and teachers from cruising through the voters waiting in line, and doing this so we open the doors at 7 AM Sharp.
By the time we close the doors at 7 pm, if there are any prospective voters in line, we bring them into the school, give them all a red or blue poker chip and line them up in the hallway. Last Spring, the last voter didn’t finish up until 9:03 PM. It took us 90 minutes to tally all the machines and compare those totals with the written sign-in sheets.
Then, it was boxing up all the voting units. (I’ll have six this year.) We’ll remove everything and put the school back the way it was; then I have to take the results, on microfiche from the voting machines, the paper signatures and complete voter printouts, to one of the Regional Collection Centers. They check all the results, and they better match, down to the exact number of voters who cast Provisional Ballots, cancelled mail-in ballots and voted electronically, etc., etc.
I will probably get home about midnight, if there are no glitches or mismatched totals.
I praying we don’t have too many, if any, prospective voters, that don’t have a photo ID; however, I suspect the Democrats will test our procedures and, how we process those that claim the right to vote by completing an affidavit, as per the compromise agreed to in the state of Texas court case. Of course, we’ll have Poll Watchers from both parties and local politicians.
I hope nobody, especially off duty cops, don’t try to come in with their gun in plain sight. I will ask them ………”You are still on duty, right, and voting while on break?” I would hate to piss off a Sheriff’s Deputy.
In this election, I’ll probably spend most, if not all my time, supervising the others and keeping things running smoothly.
I bet the time will just fly by.
Hope you found that informative. I volunteered for this duty and was amazed to find out they pay me $16.00 an hour!!
I’m licensed and have the same authority as a municipal judge (on election day), who knew?
Rest assured that I questioned their sanity, offered to loan them money if they were in need and hoped they had not joined a Sadistic Society of some sort to punish themselves. Should I ever volunteer to serve in this capacity I feel sure my children would have me committed to the nearest “Funny Farm”. C Brewer
A Conservative View 