Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
With elections a week away the Kosciusko County Clerk's Office is making sure its poll worker volunteers are trained for the Nov. 7 election.
The clerk's office began training volunteers Monday morning at the Kosciusko County Justice Building. The training sessions will continue until Friday.
More than 300 volunteers are completing the two-hour long training, learning tasks such as how to operate voting machines, checking for valid photo identification and learning how to help answer questions voters might have, according to Kosciusko County Clerk Sharon Christner.
Poll workers learn voters must present identification that displays a photo and the voters name, contains an expiration date and either be current or have expired sometime after the date of the last general election (Nov. 2, 2004) and be issued by the State of Indiana or the U.S. government.
Christner is conducting the training along with two county information technology directors.
"The training is an eye opening experience for these volunteers to see what goes into preparing for the elections," Christner said.
She said there are 65 precincts and 63 boards. She said there is one Republican inspector (representing the political affiliation of the Indiana Secretary of State), two judges of opposing parties and two clerks of opposing parties for each precinct at each polling place.
She said there are 320 people who will volunteer at Kosciusko County polls this year and there is still room for five additional volunteers.
"We can get by with the number of volunteers we have at this point, but we prefer to have five more volunteers in case voters need help," Christner said.
She said to qualify to be a poll worker volunteer a person must be a registered voter, live in Kosciusko County and if a student is 16 years of age they must have signed permission from a principal or parent to participate as a poll volunteer.
She said letters were sent in the primary in May to local high schools encouraging students to serve as polling site volunteers.
Christner said there are changes to this year's elections.
Voters will use a Direct Recording Machine to vote that was used in the May primary.
Christner described the machine as similar to an ATM machine where voters push buttons by the machine's screen to vote.
"For the most part the machine has been successful and helps tabulate votes at a faster rate," Christner said.
She said if there are multiple precincts in one polling place, voters will be allowed to vote on any of the machines at the polls.
"This process will help eliminate long lines at the polling sites," she said.
People who wish to be a poll worker volunteer can stop by the Kosciusko County Justice Building, 121 North Lake Street.
Those who wish to vote absentee have until Nov. 6 at noon to do so at the Justice Building.
Other times to vote absentee this week are today through Friday from 8 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4:30 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m.
Christner said people who wish to see if they are registered to vote and the location to vote can visit www.indianavoters.com
The Times-Union will publish a list of candidates as well as times and locations to vote later this week.
