Today I'm talking with two election judges. Wes Zongker is a Democrat and Bonnie Neal is a Republican. Thank you so much for coming in and talking to me today. Now, state law in Missouri requires an equal number of Democrats and Republicans at a polling site, and people from other parties can work, too. Let's start with you, Bonnie. How long have you worked as an election judge? And tell me what you do and why you decided to help out with elections.
Bonnie Neal: "I've been doing it for over 15 years, and I work six weeks before every election doing absentee voting. So people come in for the first four weeks who have a specific reason to vote absentee, and the two weeks before every election it is anybody can vote. The reason that I got involved in it was because I thought it was very important to serve my community. And in this capacity, I just like to help people, and I get the opportunity to help voters and to just be a positive influence."
What about you, Wes? How long have you worked as an election judge, and why did you decide to help out with elections?
Wes Zongker: "I've been working as an election judge, probably about 12 years. After I retired from Springfield Public Schools. I kind of got involved with the local Democratic Party, and as a result of that, learned much more about the election process and decided to sign up for election judge, because we're always looking for people. It's hard to fill the positions. And so I signed up to do that. My very first time being a judge, they made me a supervisory election judge and also responsible for the express vote machines. And it's like, like, 'but I know nothing.' And they said, 'oh, you'll do fine.' And so I did, and I've learned a lot and have continued to work as an election judge, a supervisory judge, and I'm currently at Glidewell.
And Bonnie, your expression makes it seem like that can be somewhat of a difficult — or at least a job with a lot of responsibility.
Neal: "It is a job with a lot of responsibilities, and it would take a special person to be able to do it the first time. We do have training, which is very helpful, but a lot of it is hands on, and I don't recommend that."
Unless you're like Wes.
Neal: "Well, he was involved in the school system, so for him it was probably okay. But I just think it's hard. You have to kind of learn the ropes, so to speak, and you can't do that with just training classes. I think a lot of it has to be hands on. A lot of people do it, and I give them kudos. A lot of people do it, so I'm just grateful that they do do it because we, like Wes said, we need judges. We're always looking for judges. So everybody stepping up to the plate is awesome."
Let me ask you both, and maybe you can weigh in together. What does a typical day as an election judge look like for you guys?
Zongker: "Oh, (it) starts early in the morning on Election Day. We have to be there 5:00 in the morning and to get everything set, you know, up for opening the polls. There's a lot of activity that goes on before the polls open. We've got to get the machines set up, the poll pads, people checked in. You have to complete an oath. Everybody has to do that before the election. And then it's basically just helping the voters get checked in during the day. When the polls close at 7, we're not done. It sometimes takes us an hour to an hour and a half to actually close out the polls, get everything gathered up, and then take it back to the Elections Center where we check stuff in. And so sometimes we won't get home until 9 or 10:00 at night."
That's a long day.
Zongker: "t's a long day."
What about for you, (Bonnie)?
Neal: "Well, I work absentee, and we start at 8 in the morning, and we worked till 5 in the afternoon. And we also do set up poll pads. We vote voters. We do a lot of behind the scenes work, like the bins, we fill the bins, we put ballots in the DS 200 machines, which are the voting machines. We do all the paperwork that's in the binders, anything that they need to get ready for Election Day besides voting voters. And then on Election Night, I work down at the Elections Center when all the supervisory judges bring back the poll pads and the ballots and everything. And so I do check in for that and make sure they have everything with them and that everything's checked off on our list so that we can have a free and fair election."
Having been witnesses to the process, do you trust it? In other words, how fair and accurate are elections, in your opinion, here in Greene County?
Neal: "In my opinion, in Greene County, Shane Schoeller is the best. He doesn't miss a beat. He's fair. He's honest. I've never had a problem in 15 years with any issue. It's just all above board. And I would tell the public in Greene County, you can trust what happens at the polls on Election Day and what happens during absentee voting, because we make sure that everything is done precisely and correctly."
Zongker: "Yeah, I agree with with her 100%. You know, making voting easy is important. And I know Shane was probably one of the first in the state to to open up some central polling locations. That is huge because a lot of people can't get away to go to their own precinct to vote. And by being able to access central polling locations that are around the city, makes it a lot easier to vote. And I give Shane credit for that. Everything is done with bipartisan teams — the pre-testing, the post-testing, working the Election Day. Everything is done with bipartisan teams, and it's not an adversarial thing. It is a team effort to ensure that the elections are fair and that things are done correctly. And the training is important. It's an important piece of that because we do training before every single election. The one thing that they did change fairly recently is, if you've been an election judge for a long time, you can take an annual test online once a year and not have to go to a hands on training session — but I mean experienced judges. There's no reason for them to do that. But you do have to go to a training session on that particular election and everybody has to attend that. So the training is there to make sure that it's fair that people know the procedures and the processes that they need to go through to ensure that."
Neal: "I'd also like to add that they did open up another polling location for (in-person) absentee voting the last two weeks before the election, which is the library center on South Campbell."
Have either of you ever helped with a post-election audit?
Zongker: "I haven't actually done what I would say, like the recounting of the ballots and stuff that they do, a manual recount, but we do test the machines before each election and after each election. And I've participated in both of those. The other thing that I would say is that when they selected the new voting machines, the DS 200 machines that they use to count the ballots, there was input from groups. And I was fortunate enough, again bipartisan, fortunate enough to be able to participate in that process. It was a matter of what was important was being able to have a paper ballot, and we've ensured that. But we were also given an opportunity to provide input as to what machines to select for the election."
Neal: "I actually have been part of a post-election audit, a hand recount, because an election was so close and there were only 600 ballots involved, and it took us 12 hours. That's how detailed they are to make sure that every single ballot was precisely voted for who they thought they had voted for."
Having been part of the post-election audits, what would you tell people? What role does that play in ensuring a fair and accurate election?
Neal: "Well, when elections are close, you don't want anybody to just guess, 'well, this person is so many votes ahead so we'll just say that they're the ones who won.' No. I think it's a 1%. If you're within that 1%, there's an automatic hand recount. It may happen every election, and it may not happen. And it's for every office from school board to commissioner to Senate, House, president. I don't care who it is. It happens, and it is precise and it is very in-depth and detailed when we do it."
Zongker: "I think it should give voters and the public confidence in our system. Shane has done everything to make sure that it's transparent. And so anybody that has, I mean, even some of the audits are open to where people can view that."
Neal: "They allow the public to come."
Zongker: "So, you know, I think it should give voters confidence in our system."
Neal: "Even during the machine testing, they allow people to come and watch. And also during during the elections, During the elections, poll watchers can come and stand behind us and watch what we're doing. So they should be very confident here in Greene County."
Talk a little bit more about the testing of election equipment.
Zongker: "So the pre and post-testing is just to make sure that the machines are counting the ballots correctly. And we will run a test decks of ballots through the machine. And so the machine counts that we know what the test deck is supposed to come out for. So basically you're standing there feeding ballots in the machine all day long. Getting them ready for an election, once you've done that, those machines actually have to be sealed up and their seal numbers are recorded. And then on Election Day, whenever you open the machines, you have to verify the seal numbers. You put them in a box, and at the end of the day, you have to reseal machines with new numbers, and all of that has to be recorded. Post-election testing is pretty much the same thing. You just run test decks through to make sure the machines are counting the ballots accurately. The express vote machines, they also have to be tested. And we — because it is for ADA compliance that people with disabilities can have the ballot read to them. They can have a larger text. It's for visually impaired. It can be for hearing impaired, but it also can be used by any voter who would choose to use that machine. But the ballot language, because every ballot for that precinct has to be in the machine and it doesn't record the vote. I mean, you get a paper ballot printed out based upon your choices, and then that's erased. And so there's no record in the machine of how you voted or anything. That paper ballot is fed through the DS 200 machine, just like every other ballot is. But the ballot language has to be checked. And so in the pre-testing of those express vote machines, we sit there and we actually read the ballot language compared to the printed ballot to make sure that it's accurate, that there's not any mistakes in it. Same thing with the names of the candidates or the issues or everything is checked. Spelling is checked. and so it's a lengthy process, but again, it's part of the integrity of the system."
What is it like to work as an election judge alongside people who have different political leanings than you?
Neal: "I would say that, yes, we are teamed up as bipartisan teams because that's the law. But we are apolitical as we are working as a team. We don't discuss politics. We don't discuss candidates. We don't discuss issues so it makes it a real cohesive team. We're just there to serve the people of Greene County. And because we don't discuss any of that, there really aren't any issues."
What about for you, Wes?
Zongker: "Well, I think what Bonnie said is exactly right. When we're in a room, like when we do the training, I couldn't tell you, other than people that I know, who's a Democrat or who's a Republican. I do pre and post-testing of the machine a lot of times, and those are bipartisan teams. And if you're working with somebody, you know, they're of the opposite party. But if you look out in the room and you don't know people, you don't know which party they belong to. And we get to know people as individuals. We talk a lot about, you know, personal things going on in our life and family and friends and activities and hobbies and things like that. So I would agree, you know, we just it's a non-issue for us."
Wes and Bonnie both say that working as an election judge allows them to meet new people and even make some lasting friendships.
Zongker: "You work with some of the same people time after time. I think one of the interesting things, at least as a Democrat, is I worked a different polling location, and the other Democrat election judge was asking about process. You know, a little bit about the party and about how it worked. And through the course of that, she became interested in serving as a delegate at the (Democratic) National Convention. And so she contacted me and asked me, 'how do you do that?' You know, and I gave her the steps that you have to go through. And it's not easy to be elected as a delegate to that convention, and she followed the process, and she went to to the Democratic National Convention this summer, which was really cool. And, you know, that was just an encounter that we had working together that one time, you know, and she reached out and followed through with the process."
Neal: "You make friends, and you even see them outside of work after your friendships to go out to different functions or to go out and eat or even come over to your house. So it's an awesome process. It's really fun."
Why do you keep working every year? What keeps you wanting to sign up year after year?
Zongker: "I just enjoy it. I, it doesn't matter. I've worked several different polling locations, and it doesn't matter where I've worked. I encounter people that I know at every single location, which is just amazing to me that that's happened, but I just find it fun. I mean, it's an important civic duty. We need people. We have a hard time finding people to fill all of the positions because with the number of polling locations that there are in Greene County and in most instances, and actually, that's changed recently. We have a minimum of two teams. So that's four people per minimum per polling location to work.
Neal: "I think we have 84 polling locations."
Zongker: "So if you figure four people, you know, times that it's a lot of people."
And you're both set to work Election Day on November 5th?
Neal: "Yes. I will work at the Elections Center in the evening on November 5th, checking in all the supervisory judges who come back with the ballots."
Wes, you'll be working as a supervisory judge?
Zongker: "(Yes). Supervisory judge on Election Day."
Well, thank you both for what you do, for helping out and for coming in and talking to me about being an election judge today.
Zongker: "Glad to do it. My pleasure."
Neal: "It's an honor. Thank you for asking us. And thank you for doing this. Yeah, it really is an honor, and we appreciate it. And we're very grateful to be able to serve Greene County and the county clerk."
After we were done with our interview, Bonnie Neal wanted to add one last thing. She wanted to encourage people to get out and vote.
"It's a privilege. It's a right. It's a responsibility, she said, "and we need to take it seriously. And so my encouragement is just come and vote in Greene County."
