EL PASO COUNTY — Weeks earlier than November’s midterm elections, El Paso County’s electoral headquarters is buzzing with anticipation. Within the again nook of the room is a cubicle with three folks and the telephones are continuously ringing.
Voters are calling with questions, from what to do after their cat spills espresso on the poll to what to do in the event that they have not acquired their poll in any respect.
Stewart Miller, a Republican, is among the voices on the opposite facet of the decision. He’s one in all a whole lot of election judges working in El Paso County for election season.
“It at all times adjustments, by no means the identical,” mentioned Miller, who has labored as an electoral choose since 2016 in El Paso County, “at first it was one thing we thought we needed to do as involved residents.”
Miller works as an election choose alongside his spouse, it is an expertise they shared collectively over the past election. Miller mentioned they did a number of jobs, from processing ballots to verifying signatures.
Election judges have a wide range of jobs within the state’s largest county. From taking telephone calls, ensuring ballots are stuffed out with the proper shade of ink, and checking signatures on ballots, all work is completed with bipartisan groups. .
“We inform our buddies we’re doing this and so they ask questions and we at all times point out it is at all times Republican, Democrat and/or Impartial or Libertarian or no matter it’s, however you at all times have that steadiness , it doesn’t matter what the job,” Miller mentioned.
For Alan Rainville, a Democrat, who has additionally labored as an election choose since 2016, sees the job as a vital a part of the electoral course of.
“Elections appear to be getting extra strong, there’s lots of exercise in elections, we’ve got individuals who doubt elections and I imagine in elections, I imagine elections are protected, safe, clear,” Rainville mentioned.
Rainville now works as a pacesetter for the Electoral Service and Voting Middle (VSPC). He oversees the facilities ensuring they open and shut for voters in a clean course of.
Over the previous few years, a slew of misinformation and misinformation has been unfold towards election employees and election methods. That is one thing that election judges say made elements of the job tough.
“It is form of irritating as a result of we all know what is going on on right here and individuals who get misinformation, misinformation, you recognize they will go to the sources however they simply select to not go to the best sources to get the great info,” Rainville mentioned.
Brian Schaaf, an unaffiliated election choose, mentioned one of many greatest misunderstandings amongst voters entails Colorado’s mail-in poll system. Colorado adopted common postal voting in 2013.
“I might encourage folks to get off social media and are available to the supply,” Schaaf mentioned, “each signature is signed by a machine and reviewed by human beings from a number of completely different events, nothing we do in as a novel particular person.”
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