Be kind to your election judges

I have worked as an election judge for over 30 years. At the election this week it became apparent the young people are in need of a civic lesson. Election judges are not clerks, nor do we have "jacket file," or a pay scale review. Election judges are pretty much volunteers, yes, we are paid, but not nearly the going rate for the type of work we perform.

We start work by 5 a.m., and finish if we are lucky by 9 p.m. Do we make mistakes, are we at times less tolerant of rude voters? Of course we are. However, to bully us, threaten us to be fired and wanting to know who our supervisor is not needed. Our supervisor is the county clerk. As for being fired, please volunteer and take our jobs, and get back to us as to the challenges we are faced with. Far too many young people came in who never registered, but felt we were being mean to them. After all, they have a driver's license.

When we have more than 100 people standing in line behind you, there is not time for us judges to provide the civic lessons you are in need of. We do provide where they need to go to register, and the phone number of the county clerk's office. For the most part we are your neighbors, and want to do our civic duty by helping on Election Day. The voter should know the county they reside in, and know if the town you live in covers two counties, you can't vote anywhere in the village, regardless what your "friend" told you.

Please don't argue with us that this law is stupid, we didn't make the law. We are required to the call the county when a person is not on the register, and the county tells us how we should handle this. The county is not CNN, please don't tell us you called CNN and they said we are to ignore what the county told us. We as judges still need to call the county, we don't report to CNN. To solve all of this REGISTER TO VOTE. And if you think we are idiots, which we were told several times this election, please call the county and work as an election judge.

Elizabeth McGinty

Island Lake