Wednesday, February 03, 2010

my daughter the election judge


Eve served again as an election judge. The city has worked hard to have a high school student serve in each precinct. The goal is to have some technologically savvy people there along with the regulars, who in our precinct are the same ones I've seen since the late 1980s.
Eve learned all sorts of Chicago politics trivia at her training.
She asked if it was ok to accept free lunch (it is a 14-16 hour day) from the alderman. It is permitted, but she got a lot of envious comments from workers at other polling places who do not get lunch.
She also discovered our precinct used to be in a bar until too many elections had the judges getting drunk so they moved us to a church.
Also, they stressed that all election judges are equal as the long term ones try to bully the high school ones.
Her favorite instruction is that at 0700 they are to throw open the door, and even if no one is around, they are to loudly announce, "The Polls are Now Open!"
Kind of a great ritual.

1 comment:

sewprimitive karen said...

It used to be in a bar, that is so Chicago, I love it!!