Spanish speaker? Kane County needs you

?Habla espanol?

Then consider serving as an election judge in Kane County during the Feb. 5 primary.

County election officials are seeking 20 more bilingual citizens to staff polling places in communities with sizable Hispanic populations.

"We'll take any help from any organization -- anyone who wants to step in and be a part of this," deputy county Clerk Jay Bennett said Friday at a meeting of the Kane County Board's public service committee.

They are needed to fulfill an agreement reached last year between the county and the U.S. Department of Justice, which sued the county for violating the federal Voting Rights Act by not adequately accommodating Spanish-speaking voters during previous elections.

The county needs 37 more Spanish speakers to work in precincts in Aurora, Dundee, Elgin, Rutland and Sugar Grove Townships.

To qualify, you must be: a U.S. citizen and Kane County resident; registered to vote; able to speak, read and write English and Spanish and capable of performing duties that include opening the polling place in the morning and closing it at night, setting up election equipment, helping voters, signing in voters, verifying voter qualifications, distributing ballots/activation cards for touch-screen machines, operating voting equipment, filling out forms, processing and transmitting votes at the end of the day and certifying vote totals.

Even if they're not old enough to vote, high school juniors and seniors can serve as judges if they are at least 17 and have a 3.0 grade-point average on a 4.0 scale.

Judges work from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day; trained judges are paid $125.

Candidates running for office and elected political party committeemen are prohibited from serving as election judges.

To serve, call Joel Gonzales, alternate language coordinator, at (630) 444-3062.

If officials cannot find enough bilingual judges, Spanish interpreters affiliated with Centro de Informacion, an Elgin-based social service agency, will be available via phone at polling places that serve large Hispanic populations, Bennett said.