In a message dated 11/6/2004 8:16:23 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
You might ask if they still provide election workers with a video. I found
this more helpful than the training session or the book along.
The "video" is also shown on a few cable stations, and all elected polling officials are notified of this.
�
There are two problems, though.
1)�The city only communicates with "elected polling officials." They have no way of knowing who the people "found" by the ward leaders are. And relatively few districts have elected officials. Nobody runs -- in part because it's not "promoted" so nobody knows about it. There's something "we" can do about this -- thinking globally and acting locally. We can run. There are two elected positions -- Judge of Elections and Inspector of Elections.
Amen.
Actually, there are three elected officials ...
The Judge of Elections, the Majority Inspector and the Minority Inspector.
The Judge "runs alone;" each party nominates a candidate, only one wins.
The Majority Inspector and Minority Inspector both run for "Inspector of Elections" on their respective tickets. However, the party which wins the election, DA's race as I recall, becomes the Majority Inspector and the other the Minority Inspector. (If I remember correctly, the Inspector position is like the City Council At Large ... nominate 1 vote for 2.)
The Minority Inspector gets to appoint the "Clerk," the 4th member of the Board.
The City Commissioners appoint the Machine Inspector, the 5th member of the Election Board.
[There may also be a Bilingual Interpreter also appointed by the Commissioners, and Overseers appointed by the Court of Common Pleas, but both are "rare" in the City.]
Poll Watchers are appointed by the Candidates or the Political Parties and are issued certificates by the City Commissioners. Each Candidate on the ballot is entitled to two Poll Watchers in each Division. With 1,681 polling places in the city (as of 1997) that's quite a few bodies! And yes, one watcher for EACH candidate is entitled to be present in the polls all day long ... which could mean quite a few "extra" bodies cluttering up the place. In practice, there are rarely more than one or two "Party" watchers in each division, and those are usually the members of the party's "elected" Ward Committee, aka Committee people.
"Technically," all Election Board members MUST reside in the Division where they are "working."
Technically, the Ward Leader has nothing to do with selecting any position on the Election Board as they are all ALWAYS elected. If there is no Judge of Elections present at the Polls there is a procedure, dictated by a finite time line, for appointing a Judge, both if other elected officials are present, or by the assembled voters if no elected officials are present.
In reality, however, most Election Boards are vacant. Many Polling Places, where there are multiple Divisions voting, have only one Election Board for all the Divisions voting there.
(This is a plus for the Board members as they get to collect two pay checks.) Because the Election Boards tend to be vacant, it IS the Ward Leaders who takes on the responsibility to see to it that "warm bodies" are available to spend the 15 hours necessary to keep the polls open.
2) Most elected polling officials don't choose their own "workers," but let the ward leaders do it for them. One result is that, when the notices of training sessions, cable showings of the videos, etc, come in the mail, the elected officials who get them have nobody to pass the word to.
Normally, once you have filled out the Payroll sheets, you will get the next mailing from the City Commissioners.
The Republican ward leader in this general area is Matt Wolfe, who's on this list. His Democratic counterpart is Kevin Fassett, who I don't think is on the list; Sylvia Hammerman-Brown�works with him, and isn't this list but is better known than Kevin to most of us.�I'm an elected 'Judge of Elections,' having run as a Libertarian. When the time rolls around, maybe I can work with Matt (stranger things have happened but don't ask me to name them), and we can invite the Dems, too, to do a multi-partisan workshop on running for one of the two elected polling official positions. Matt?
The process is actually quite "simple."
Before the Spring Primary in 2005 (nominally in May 2005) have to circulate a nomination petition and get 10 of your fellow registered voters in your Division to sign it if you want to run for Jude, 5 for Inspector. There are "Street Lists" available to help you identify who is actually registered. While the Parties normally organize all this as part of their normal petition drives for every Primary, both the blank petitions and the street lists are available from the Commissioners.
There is an old Committee of 70 newsletter article about the process here:
http://www.seventy.org/nycu/1997/electionboard.html
And just to confuse things, at this same election the members of the Ward Committee are also up for election. (Note that Party rules apply here, not "legislated" law.)
By the way, it's grueling work. As Bill or Stephen pointed out, the city pays $100. But if you don't think of it as a public service, you're missing the whole idea.
The day starts at 6am, and ends at 9pm; nominally 15 hours.
The Judge has a bit more work to do as they are responsible for schlepping all of the Election Materials to and from the Polls. The materials are picked up before the Election and then returning the returns election night.
T.T.F.N. William H. Magill [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
---- You are receiving this because you are subscribed to the list named "UnivCity." To unsubscribe or for archive information, see <http://www.purple.com/list.html>.
