10 Lessons I Learned About US Elections As An Election Judge

Note: This article appeared originally on my website here.

TLDR; Free and fair elections are the backbone of US democracy. Making sure that every eligible vote that’s cast gets counted is an important job. As an election judge for the 2024 US Presidential Election, I participated in the ballot counting process, and saw a lot of teamwork, oversight, bipartisanship, and it was all secure. Here’s what I learned about US elections from that experience.

The 2024 US Presidential Election, also known as the General Election, is over. Some felt that the time leading up to the election was a divisive time in the US. Many people were nervous leading up to the election, myself included, and that anxiety can lead to hopelessness. How I personally deal with anxiety or hopelessness, though, is by finding ways that I can help. That way, no matter what happens, I can say that I did my part or made a small difference in helping to keep US elections free and fair. Here’s my experience being an election worker, also known as an election judge, for Denver county in Colorado for the 2024 US Presidential Election.

Lesson 10: The Mission

An election worker, also known as an election judge, helps conduct an election. In Colorado at least, there are two main areas where an election judge can work: either in the Voter Service and Polling Center (VSPC) or behind the scenes in counting the ballots. There are many roles available that an election judge can work in, for both types of work environments. In Denver county, where I was an election judge, voters could vote in person at a VSPC, mail in their ballots, or drop off their ballots into designated drop boxes.

Regardless of how one chooses to vote, the mission of an election judge is to help ensure a free and fair election, and that every eligible vote cast gets counted.

Lesson 9: How I Got In

I was interested in working for the presidential election for some time, and was even a volunteer poll watcher for the 2020 Presidential Election. Wanting to get more involved this time around, I submitted an application online in July to be an election worker for Jefferson County, where I live. As often happens with online applications, this one went straight to the dark vortex of the internet, and I never heard back.

In August, my friend Sharon Blackstock, who’s worked as an election judge supervisor at several VSPCs over the years, told me about an elections job fair being held through Denver county. I attended the job fair and had 1:1 chats with hiring managers at the different team booths. To make a good first impression, I also made sure to dress professionally and brought several copies of my resume with me. At the end of the job fair when I submitted my interest sheet, I was told that I would receive an email after Labor Day with my new assignment. My start date was November 1, and my assignment would last a week or longer, depending on my availability and the need after the election.

Another bonus was that my job would be a paid, temporary position with the City of Denver. That’s the law, by the way, that election workers must get paid for their service.

My experience at the job fair reinforced what I already knew: that it’s better to make a personal connection first before you apply for a job, even if it’s over Zoom. You’ll have a much better chance than if you just uploaded your application online.

And if you want to be informed about upcoming opportunities, sign up for the organization’s newsletter if they have one, or follow them on social media. Denver Elections, for example, is on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram

Lesson 8: What I Did

My assignment put me behind the scenes helping out with the ballot counting as an Agilis operator, as part of the ballot verification team. As part of the ballot verification team, I would use the Agilis machines to sort and scan mail-in and drop-off ballots (the combination of which I will refer to as “mail-in ballots” for the rest of this article), so that other teams could then verify the voters’ signatures and count the ballots. There is another process to verify the ballots of those voting in-person at VSPCs. But since I didn’t work at a VSPC, I won’t be able to get into that process for this article.

We actually used two Agilis branded ballot sorting machines, but configured them for different runs.

For the first run, I worked with 2-3 team members to feed mail-in ballots, still in their envelopes, into the machine, and get them sorted into bins. The machine reads the voter’s signature on the envelope, and uploads that signature into a database for verification later.

Once all envelopes in a batch have their signatures scanned and uploaded, a separate team, working individually on their computers, then compares the uploaded signatures with the voters’ signatures on file to check for a match. If there are any questions during this process, the signature verification gets escalated to a bi-partisan review, which I will cover in lesson 6, on Preventing Voting Fraud.

Next, my team and I would run the sorted bins through a second Agilis machine for the audit run. Here, the machine scans and checks that the election id and voter id on the envelope is valid for the current election, and slices the envelope open for easier ballot removal later. The ballots that pass the audit run get sorted into bins, where they will be delivered to another team who will remove the ballots from the opened envelopes and feed them into counting machines.

Ballots that fail this audit run, including those that failed the signature verification, are set aside and handled on a case by case basis later. I will go over what some of those cases are in Lesson 7.

I would estimate that about 80-90% of mail-in and drop off ballots get through this initial verification process successfully, so the process is fairly efficient.

By the way, photography in the working areas is not allowed, hence I don’t have any pictures of that. But I hope you enjoy these other pictures I’ve been allowed to take instead.

Lesson 7: We Go To Great Lengths To Count Every Vote

As I said, most ballot envelopes get through the ballot verification process just fine, and move on to get counted. But for the small number that don’t get through initially, they are not discarded. Every effort is made to verify those ballots and get them counted. We set aside some time every day for a couple of team members to handle these individual cases, in between doing large batches of machine runs.

For example, it’s fairly common for married couples to sign each other’s envelopes, probably just getting them confused for each other. These get flagged of course, when the signature on the envelope doesn’t match to the name and voter id attached to the envelope. When we find two envelopes registered to the same address, and the signatures seem to be swapped, that’s the conclusion we come to.

Another common mistake is when folks send their ballot in an old election envelope. For example, if they sent their ballot for the current General Election in a Primary Election envelope (for the Primary Election that took place in June 2024). Maybe they didn’t want to waste the old envelope? In this case, the Agilis machine would catch the invalid election id on the envelope and the envelope would get set aside. That’s because the signature, voter id, and election id for the current election must all be correct in order for that ballot to be verified and then delivered to another team to be counted.

We also make sure that out of county ballots get counted. For instance, we might receive a Jefferson county ballot that someone dropped into a Denver county drop off box. Colorado state law allows folks to drop ballots into out of county boxes, though, and we are required to get those ballots to their respective counties in order to be counted. And that’s because Denver county cannot count a Jefferson county voter’s ballot for example, or vice versa. We can catch this quickly with a visual inspection of the envelope, as each county’s ballot envelope will have a different design. Or if it goes through the machine, the machine will see that the election id and voter id doesn’t exist in the system.

But what happens to the ballots with old election envelopes or spouses signing each other’s envelopes? What happens to them, you ask?

Take a deep breath, and let me tell you …. Those envelopes have to be manually “recreated” by hand by two-person bi-partisan teams with the correct information, and the ballots stuffed into those new envelopes, before they are run through the machines again. Yes, I SAID THAT.

This is where bipartisan support is crucial to running a fair election. That’s because anytime a ballot is taken out of an envelope for any reason before the ballot has been verified, you need two persons from different party affiliations (1 unaffiliated person and 1 party-affiliated person are allowed) to do this work.

So, when we need to create a new envelope for a ballot, that requires:

1. photocopying the old envelope to get the voter’s signature,
2. printing a new barcode with the correct voter id and election id for the current election,
3. and cutting / pasting all that on a current election envelope.
4. This has to be done by a two-person bipartisan team.

If all efforts to verify a ballot have been made and verification still fails, that’s when the voter will eventually get contacted. But that may happen much later. This is why it’s so important to vote early to head off potential problems that may arise and ensure your vote gets counted in a timely manner (see Lesson 2).

Lesson 6: We Also Maintain Voter Integrity And Confidentiality, While Preventing Voting Fraud

During initial signature verification, it is usually straightforward to determine whether a voter’s signature matches the one that they have on file. When the signatures are completely different, that may be an indicator that another person is trying to vote in place of the registered voter. That ballot will be then set aside and the voter contacted for follow up.

But when it’s not as clear cut, the signature verification will then escalate to a two person bipartisan team for review. Bipartisan team reviews are one way we ensure voter integrity while preventing fraud, as mentioned in Lesson 7.

Also discussed in Lesson 7: verifying that the combination of the signature, voter id, and election id are all valid for that voter in the current election is another way we maintain voter integrity while preventing voting fraud.

This system can also catch if a voter has voted already, but it cannot discern the voter’s intent. For example, we’ve received partial ballots from voters who have been flagged as having voted previously (note that “partial ballots” are possible in Denver county, where the ballot for the 2024 General election ran to six pages!). Did this person submit a partial ballot the first time, and thought they could submit the rest of their ballot the second time, and it would all count as their one vote? There is no way for us to know!

And that’s because the system also doesn’t know how the voter voted. There is nothing on the ballot that can be traced back to an individual voter. Only the envelope is connected to the voter and it is only used for ballot verification. Once a ballot is verified and it is separated from the envelope, there is no way to trace that ballot back to that voter. This is how the system maintains voting integrity and confidentiality, while preventing voting fraud.

As for which ballot gets counted? The first ballot (or part of a ballot!) received gets counted, and any “extra ones” after that don’t. So you can’t vote more than once in the same election.

Lesson 5: Everyone Working As An Election Judge Wants The Same Things

Everyone working to support an election, regardless of their party affiliation or none, wants the same things. We all want a free and fair election, and to have everyone’s vote be counted.

The number one rule is that we are not allowed to talk about politics at our work locations, to ensure that everyone can work together to accomplish our shared goals and mission.

I had the pleasure of working side by side with team members from other political parties (I am a registered Democrat), knowing that we were there to do what was best for our country. There was comfort in focusing on the work during the election and in the days following the election, and knowing that no matter the outcome of the election or how any of us felt about it, we were going to make sure that every vote got counted.

Another upside to the “no politics” rule is that it forced us to talk about things that we had in common, like families or pets, travel or vacation plans or other shared interests. It gave me chances to share pictures of my dog, early and often.

Lesson 4: It Takes A Village To Defend Democracy

Speaking of my dog …..

Supporting an election requires the work of many people, not just the election workers themselves, but also their families.

Working at the election office 6 days a week, (yes I came into work on a Saturday!), meant spending less time taking care of my dog. Election day itself was a 12 hour work day, with other days being 8 hour days plus a 3 hour round trip light rail and bus commute, to avoid paying expensive daily parking fees in downtown Denver. My husband, Eric, drove me to and from work on election day itself, so I didn’t have to make that commute back home alone late at night. But my long working days meant that he also had to feed and walk our dog himself most of the time, when those responsibilities were usually shared between us. On top of that, although Eric works from home most days of the week, on the days when he had to come into the office, he would take our dog to daycare.

Normally this wouldn’t be such a huge challenge for him, except that it snowed for several days the week of the election, which meant my husband had to shovel the driveway so I could drive to the light rail station. Snow also meant putting clothes and doggie booties on the dog every time they went for a walk, and I couldn’t be home to help with all that extra work!

At the end of day, it was a lot of work for both of us, in order for me to support the election. But my husband was proud of me for doing my part to serve our country, and I’m proud of him for doing his part indirectly, by supporting me.

Lesson 3: The Results: Denver County Supported A High Voter Turnout

77% of Denver county ballots sent out were cast, with the majority of votes done by mail-in ballots, according to the Denver Elections Division Dashboard. This is a high level of participation, with over 369,000 ballots cast and counted (for comparison, the overall turnout figure for the US in the 2024 election is estimated to be around 64%). For so many votes to be counted in such a short amount of time, with such speed and accuracy, is truly amazing!

It has been an honor for me to witness the ballot counting process myself and to be a part of it for this election.? I’ve heard anecdotally that the way Denver county conducts elections is considered to be the “gold standard” and for good reason. The results speak for themselves.

Lesson 2: How You Can Help, Part 1: Keep Voting and Vote Early

No matter how you voted or how you feel about the election results, the best way you can help is to continue voting in future elections, vote early, and make your voice heard! Lots of important local issues and local races were also decided in this US Presidential Election, also known as the General Election, in addition to picking the US president. Deciding these local issues and candidates can have an equal or greater impact on your day to day lives. For example, Colorado voters agreed to remove the same sex marriage ban from Colorado’s constitution and approved an amendment guaranteeing abortion access. Just those two issues alone will have a tremendous impact on many people, regardless of how US federal laws might change in the future.

And by voting early, you can help ensure that your vote gets counted in a timely manner and gives you and the county a chance to address any potential problems early on, should they arise, making the counting process smoother for everyone involved.

Lesson 1: How You Can Help, Part 2: Support and Protect Election Workers

I was lucky in that the building that I worked at was safe and had good security.

But I know that was not always the case everywhere. US democracy has weakened over the last few years, with election workers and election officials in several states reporting threats of violence for doing their job. In fact, I had multiple friends from my church and community pray for me and wished me well, because of those fears of violence against election workers in the past.

It’s upsetting that this kind of political violence is becoming normalized. I would say that if you value our democracy, then we need to do what we can to support and protect election workers, who are at the forefront of protecting that democracy.

I’d like to end by saying that it has been an honor and a privilege for me to support the 2024 US Presidential Election for Denver county. I learned a lot from this experience, and I hope you learned something from reading this as well. Thank you for taking the time to read my article.