Now I don't want to get off on a rant here...

I am Joe Citizen

I moved out of my parent's house about 5 years ago, but the move was only about 15 minutes away. Since then I had been voting at the polling location by their house because I never changed my address with the Board of Elections.

As anyone can tell from even a cursory view of my blog, politics and thus voting are very important to me. Amy lived in Bel Air and since her polling location was up there I urged her to submit a change of address form so that she could vote in Baltimore County. I figured I might as well do the same, so that I can vote closer to my house now.

When I filled out the form I noticed a check box to receive information on becoming an election judge. I thought that would be pretty neat and I checked it. A few weeks later I not only received my new voter registration card, but an application to become an election judge. I promptly filled that out and sent it back in.

Yesterday I received a phone call from the Baltimore County Board of Elections informing me that they were very pleased to receive my application and had an opening for me already. She was a very friendly lady and gave me some additional information about the program. She told me they were in desperate need of Republicans, to which I replied, "Yes I figured as much, we seem to be a minority in this state." I have lived my entire life here and that is no news to me.

A few interesting facts about being an election judge:
1) You have to be at your assigned polling location from 6 AM to 10 PM each election day.
2) You aren't allowed to leave the polling location at all. Not even for food, which you are instructed to bring enough of for the entire day. This apparently is a security precaution.
3) You get paid $150 each election to do this. I was willing to do it for free, because I looked at it as a civic duty.

I found all this very intriguing and would urge any Republicans/Independents/Constitutionalist/etc. in Maryland to get out there and do the same. Nothing against Democrats here, but I imagine they have enough of them already.

Be sure to register to vote too, if you haven't already!

Posted by price at July 20, 2004 09:36 PM