Our weekly program Making Democracy Work is a collaboration between KSMU Radio and the League of Women Voters of Southwest Missouri. It's hosted and produced by LWV volunteers, and it airs each Monday morning at 9:45 on KSMU.
In this episode of our local program Making Democracy Work, Erika Fox speaks with Greene County Clerk Shane Schoeller.
Fox: We are so happy to have you on the program, especially as you are well aware, the election is right around the corner. And with that, we wanted to kind of talk about election judges and the work that you all do to ensure that our elections are safe and that people who are eligible can vote. So, can you just give us some background on how election judges are trained?
Schoeller: It's something we work on for every election, and we'll be doing it for this November election. Literally, we work with our central committees to make sure we get Republicans and Democrats. But you can also be an Independent. You can be Libertarian, Green Party, for example. For example, we're going through hands-on training where we will train the election judges, you know, how to properly turn on the tabulation equipment where the ballots are cast, how to check in voters properly on the poll pads. Of course, we also have special training for the accessible voting equipment for people that can't fill out a regular paper ballot. And then during the last week before the election, we'll do a training where everyone comes together. And throughout the week, one session in the morning, one session in the afternoon. I will go through and I'll give them an overview. Sometimes it takes two and a half, depending upon the number of questions, it could take up to three hours. We will go through what needs to take place to make sure as we're checking in voters, that we're doing it with fairness, that we're doing with accountability to make sure that if there are any questions, especially when there's a close election, we can go back to those election judges and say, you know, can you explain to us what happened at your polling location that day? And that has really been just an incredible system, not only for Greene County, but for all the state of Missouri that works really well for the voters to make sure there is accountability for every election.
Fox: You mentioned the judges. Who are these judges? How do you make sure that they're nonpartisan?
Schoeller: Well, now actually, statutes call for them to be partisan. For example, your supervisory judges has to be one Republican, one Democrat. And then predominantly you're going to have mostly Republicans and Democrats in terms of your judges that are there sitting beside each other, whether they are a supervisor or regular. But again, as I mentioned earlier, they can be Independent, they can be Libertarian, they can be Green Party. But the main thing is what the statutes call for is we know people do have different political philosophies. We want to make sure there's not one philosophy there that is the predominant philosophy conducting that election in that polling location. So, actually, the statutes call for, at the end of this year, and it's during every major election year, the central committee chair for the Republican Party, the Democratic Party and even Libertarian Party, if they so choose, they're supposed to give me a list of twice the number of election judges I will need for the next major general election, which would be two years from then. And that's how we're supposed to select our election judges now.
Fox: Oh, interesting.
Schoeller: And that hasn't happened for some time. And not only in our county but counties across our state. But we work with our central committees, first and foremost, to make sure that they're helping us get those election judges. And then we work with citizens because when they don't have enough election judges for us to be able to make sure we can conduct the election well on Election Day, we then, for example, will sometimes go out to the media. And we did that recently to say, hey, we need more to make sure we have that bipartisanship, you know, as we conduct the election on the day of the election. So, there's a number of ways that we try to do that and try to work with civic organizations as well, just anyone who clearly is interested in making sure that there's fairness, that there's accountability and integrity in every election. Those are the people we want there. And they're your friends, they're your neighbors, just folks that are there that, you know, say, hey, this is a priority for me. I'm going to give up this time to make sure that we have a great election. As I tell all of our election judges, we can't do this without you.
Fox: Absolutely. You need those people. And speaking of what they do when the polls close, what do they do next? How do they get those certified ballots to your office? And then what does your office do?
Schoeller: So, we have an entire, you know, checklist to open the polls. We have one to close the polls, but literally, they have to make sure all the ballots are sealed, what we call the tabulation, in terms of the media stick that has those results. Of course, those are uncertified on election night. They will bring all that back together in a sealed container. They have to be in one car. They have to drive together. And so, they will come back and then they will drop those off. We have a bipartisan team that receives them, bipartisan teams that literally take all the ballots. They then seal those ballots in case there's any questions then a judge could order us to open up those containers in order to be able to go through and potentially do a recount. That's happened before in terms of very close races is one good example. But all those things happen in terms of making sure we have that bipartisanship, making sure we have the paperwork for chain of custody and making sure that we're there in case there are any close elections, we can go back and be able to look at what took place during that election and be able to do that recount and be able to do it within an open and transparent manner, which is what we want for every election. As I tell voters, we want everything to be transparent except how you vote. That's the one thing we want to make sure we keep secret is how you vote.