Serving as an election judge, the questions people ask before signing up

Worst job ad in America. Wanted: reliable adult, willing to arrive before dawn, sit on a folding chair for fourteen hours or so, be polite to every single person who walks through the door, including the ones who are angry about the parking, and follow a procedure manual to the letter. Pay: modest. Gratitude: occasional. Bring your own lunch.

And yet that is exactly how American elections work. The machinery of a free vote is not run by a distant bureaucracy. At the polling place, it is run by your neighbors, people who said yes when the county asked, and counties are always short of them. If you care about elections that people on both sides can trust, you can complain about the process, or you can sit at the table and become part of it. This is a question-and-answer post, because the same questions come up before every election, and they deserve plain answers.

One caution before we start. Almost every detail below varies by state and often by county, including the job title. Depending on where you live, the same role is called an election judge, a poll worker, an inspector, a clerk, or something else. Treat what follows as a map of the usual terrain, and use your county election office's pages for the exact rules.

Getting the job

What does an election judge actually do?

You help run a polling place on election day, and sometimes during early voting. Typical tasks include setting up the equipment and signs in the morning, checking voters in against the poll book, handing out the right ballot, helping voters who have questions, keeping the line moving, sealing and logging materials when the day ends, and returning everything to the election office. Different roles split the work. In many counties one person acts as the chief or presiding judge, who is responsible for the whole polling place, and others serve as check-in clerks, ballot judges or machine judges.

How do I apply?

Start with your county election office, which is usually the county clerk, the registrar of voters or the board of elections. Most offices have a poll worker page with an online form. You can also call. The county will tell you what the application requires and when it recruits for each election. Some counties recruit all year, and some fill the roster months before a big election.

There is another door. In many states the political parties nominate or recommend election judges, and the county party can submit your name. If you are a Republican and you want to serve as one of the party's nominees, call the county chair or the party's election chair. Our post on The Republican Party org chart, from your precinct to the RNC explains who that is.

Do I need to be a registered voter? What are the other requirements?

Requirements vary. Many states ask that you be a registered voter in the county, or at least a resident. Many ask you to be of voting age, and some states allow high-school students who are 16 or 17 to serve as student poll workers, with permission from their school. Some states require that you not be a candidate on the ballot and not be closely related to one. Some bar people who work for a campaign. You will usually have to be able to read and write English well enough to follow the materials, and to stand or sit through a long day. Your county will list its own rules.

Party balance, training and pay

Does it matter which party I belong to?

In a lot of states, yes, in a good way. Many states require election judges to be balanced between the two major parties, so that no polling place is run by one party's people alone. The point of partisan balance is that each side can see the other doing the work. The Republican judge and the Democratic judge at the same table watch each other, and the voters get two sets of eyes on every step.

That is the practical reason Republicans should sign up. Where the law calls for balance, an empty Republican slot is a slot that gets filled by someone else, or does not get filled at all. If you want the process to be fair to you, be in the room. Some states do not require balance, and some allow nonpartisan judges, so ask your county.

What training will I get, and do I have to go?

You will almost always have to attend training. Counties usually offer sessions in person, online, or both, a few weeks to a few days before election day. Typical training covers how to open and close the polling place, how to use the poll book and the voting equipment, how to handle a voter who is not on the list, how to assist a voter with a disability, what the rules are about campaign material, and what to do in an emergency. Many counties give a hands-on practice session with the equipment. Some test you at the end.

Go, pay attention and take notes. The procedures are exact on purpose. The people who do well on election day are not the ones who improvise, they are the ones who remembered the checklist.

How much does it pay, and how long is the day?

Pay is modest and varies by county, by role and by state. Some places pay a flat stipend, some pay by the hour, and some add a payment for attending training. Your county's poll worker page will state the figure for your area, and I will not guess at it here. Treat it as a thank-you, not a salary.

The day is long. Polling places often open early in the morning, with workers arriving an hour or more before the doors open to set up. Polls then stay open for the hours set by state law, and workers stay after they close to finish the paperwork, seal the materials and deliver them. That can add up to a day of well over twelve hours. Many counties allow shifts or split days. Ask.

On election day

What does the opening routine look like?

Before the first voter walks in, the workers set up the polling place. Typical steps include posting required notices and voting instructions, setting up the check-in table and the voting booths, starting and testing the voting equipment, and printing a tape from the machine that shows zero votes have been recorded. The ballot box or scanner is shown to be empty where the state requires, and then it is sealed according to procedure. The judges from each party often sign or initial the forms together.

Those steps look like ritual because they are ritual. Each one is there so that, at closing, anyone can say the machine started clean and the box started empty.

How do I check voters in?

The details depend on the state, but the heart of it is the same everywhere. A voter arrives and states a name, and shows identification if the state requires it. Some states require photo ID, some accept other documents, and some ask for a signature that is compared with the one on file. You find the voter in the poll book, which may be on paper or on an electronic tablet. You confirm that the voter is in the right polling place and has not already voted. The voter signs, you hand over the correct ballot for that voter's precinct and, in some states, party, and you mark the voter as having voted.

Be the same to everyone. The voter who is polite and the voter who is rude both get the same procedure. The voter with an accent, the voter in a wheelchair and the voter in a hurry also get the same procedure, and that is how it should be. For help with state-specific ID rules, read Can I vote in the Republican primary? Your registration questions answered for the registration side, and then your own county's page.

What is a provisional ballot, and when do I use it?

A provisional ballot is a ballot the voter casts when a question about eligibility cannot be settled at the table. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 requires states to offer a provisional ballot to a voter who says he or she is registered and eligible but whose name is not on the roll. The ballot goes into a sealed envelope with the voter's information, and the election office checks eligibility afterwards. If the voter turns out to be eligible, the ballot is counted. If not, it is not.

As an election judge you do not decide whether the voter is eligible. You offer the provisional ballot when the rules say so, explain what will happen next, make sure the paperwork is filled out and give the voter any receipt or information sheet. Your job is to make sure no eligible voter is turned away without a way to cast a ballot, and also that no ineligible ballot is counted. A provisional ballot serves both.

What is "chain of custody," and why do people keep saying it?

Chain of custody is the paper trail that shows who had the equipment and the ballots at every moment. It covers the voting machines before and after the election, the memory cards or drives, the sealed ballot boxes and the envelopes. In practice it looks like numbered tamper-evident seals, logs where two people sign off, and a requirement that certain materials never be left alone or unsealed.

I am a big fan of this one, because it is a rare thing in modern life: a system that does not ask you to trust anyone's good intentions. It asks you to show the paperwork. When a judge from each party signs the same seal log, nobody has to wonder. If you want people on both sides to have confidence in results, careful custody is where that confidence is built. Follow the procedure exactly, write down the seal numbers legibly, and if a seal is broken or a number does not match, tell the chief judge and the election office right away. Do not try to fix the paperwork yourself.

Can I talk about politics or wear my campaign gear?

No. Election judges are expected to be neutral while on duty. Every state bans campaigning inside the polling place and in a zone around it, measured in feet from the entrance. That means no candidate shirts, hats, buttons or stickers, no politics at the table, and no hints about whom to vote for. Read your state's rule about the zone, because workers are generally held to it as well. You can have a favorite candidate. You just cannot have a favorite at the table.

When something goes wrong

Who settles a dispute at the polling place?

Usually the chief or presiding judge decides, following the law and the county's instructions, and the county election office is the next call. If a voter's eligibility is challenged, state law sets out who may challenge, on what basis, and how it is decided, often by the judges at the table, often with a provisional ballot as the safe outlet. If the judges disagree and the polling place has partisan balance, many states have a procedure for that, including a call to the county office.

The principle is the same as in a good court: no one person's hunch decides, and the rule decides. If you find yourself about to decide on your own that a voter is not allowed to vote, stop and ask the chief judge.

What should I do if something looks wrong?

First, ask whether it is actually wrong. A lot of what looks wrong on election day is simply how the process works: a slow line, a voter in the wrong precinct, a machine that needs a reboot. If after that you still think a rule is being broken, follow the chain: tell the chief judge, write down what happened with the time, and if the chief judge cannot solve it, call the county election office, whose number is in your training materials. A serious concern can also go to the county party's lawyer.

The thing you must not do is take things into your own hands. Do not confront a co-worker in front of voters. Do not post on social media from the polling place. Do not leave your post unless the chief judge agrees. If you have seen a plain, serious violation of the law, write down the facts and report them to the election official, and then to the authorities if necessary. For the kind of log to keep, see lawful poll watching, what you may see, what you may say, what to report; the same habits apply when you are on the inside.

What happens at closing?

At closing, the polls shut at the time set by state law. Voters who are in line at that moment are generally allowed to vote, so keep the line moving until the last of them has finished. Then the workers close out the voting equipment, print the results tapes, reconcile the number of voters checked in against the number of ballots cast, seal the ballot containers and equipment with numbered seals, fill out the closing forms, and carry everything to the drop-off location, often in pairs from different parties. Only after all of that is done do you go home.

Do the reconciliation slowly. If the numbers do not match, you want to find the error at the table, with two judges and a coffee, and not the next morning in the election office.

Who this job is for

Is it worth it? I think so. It is a long day and it is not glamorous. But there is no better civics lesson than seeing a polling place from the inside, and few things that build more trust in an outcome. A person who has stood at the table and watched a hundred neighbors vote does not need to be told that the process is made of ordinary people trying to get it right. That person has seen it. And that person can say so, credibly, to the neighbor who is worried.

If you are a retiree with time, a teacher on a day off, a small-business owner who can arrange coverage, or a young person who wants to see how the thing works, you are exactly the kind of person the county needs. Consider also working in the weeks before the election, when the operation is being built. The other side of that coin is the volunteer who watches from outside the table, and for that, see how to become a precinct committeeman and take over your county party, which is a good path for people who want to serve their party at the neighborhood level too.

The bottom line

• Election day runs on neighbors who agreed to work a long day for modest pay. Counties are always short of them, and they are not choosy about who says yes.
• Apply through your county election office, and if you are a Republican, also let the county party know. Where states require partisan balance, your slot matters.
• Go to training, follow the procedures exactly, and keep your politics at the door. The rules are the job.
• When something looks wrong, ask first whether it is wrong, then write down facts and follow the chain of command. Do not improvise.
• Call your county election office today and ask when the next poll worker training begins.