Commentary; Posted: 11/5/02

Election judges served well

Don Heinzman

No matter what the outcome this election week, those who run the election system deserve our gratitude. Even before the tragic death of Senator Paul Wellstone, the national focus was on this U.S. Senate race, one of several key races that could decide the balance of power in the U. S. Congress.

With the change of events due to Sen. Wellstoneís death, the work of election judges, clerks and county auditors was under scrutiny by both political parties. If this election were close, as predicted, political parties will be looking for any irregularities that could cause a challenge to the outcome.

The challenge to state, county and local voting officials was counting of the votes for the U. S. Senate, particularly on how the absentee ballots were handled. This task was made more difficult because supplemental ballots for that race had to be printed and counted separately.

For example, in Anoka County, 150,000 supplemental ballots had to be printed, only after learning who the Democratic nominee would be. That left three days to have them printed and sent out to the communities who had to distribute them to the 120 precincts.

Moreover, the county auditors had to meet with the clerks of the election to give them the new instructions which had to be communicated to the many election judges. For example, in Anoka County, 1400 judges had to be re-instructed. As fate would have it, there are more precincts than ever in growing communities due to the redistricting.

One time the consuming task was counting all of the U. S. Senate supplemental ballots by hand, while the scanner counted the results of all of the other contests from the regular ballots after the polls closed Tuesday night.

When people voted Tuesday they had to vote on the regular ballot, except for the U.S. Senate race where they recorded their vote on the supplemental ballot.

One tricky part was the counting of the absentee ballots where the voter had intended to vote for the Democratic nominee. Ramona Doebler, Sherburne Countyís auditor/treasurer, said no ballots could be counted until after the polls closed.

Moreover, those who filled out and returned absentee ballots with the Wellstone vote had three options.

They either could vote on the supplemental ballot on election day, they could write in their choice, or they could vote on election day. If they had sent in their ballot with a preference for Wellstone, they could vote again, provided there was time to send them a supplemental ballot and have it returned.

Then judges had to find the original ballot and replace it. Judges had to check and cross check ballots and absentee ballots. Meanwhile, with no margin for error, auditor-treasurers had to scramble to make sure all ballots were cast correctly, because any slip-up could be the basis for a challenge.

Hereís a salute to the Secretary of Stateís office, the county auditor/treasurers, city clerks and all the judges for operating the voting system. Letís hope a Florida was avoided.

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