County bosses monitor election paper trail

Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2004 | 9:36 a.m.

Clark County citizens can do more than vote today. They also will have an opportunity to meet county government officials.

More than 600 employees, including department heads and most of the county manager's office staff, will man the polls, as they have for years. This time the workers, who are trained and paid for their time, have the responsibility of overseeing the new "paper-trail" voting machines.

County Manager Thom Reilly said he knows that there will be election observers from across the country looking at how the new computerized voting machines perform.

"I'm a little nervous myself," Reilly said Friday. "I'll be taking home the manual to study."

The county's contribution is important, Reilly and Larry Lomax, the county's registrar of voters, agreed.

"Basically, we're the staffing," Reilly said. "It's such an important year, particularly this year. We're the first state to implement a paper trail. It's a national election. There's a lot of contested ballot questions.

"And there are a lot of people watching."

County employees are paid for their time at the polls. Rank-and-file employees can get overtime for their election work, which can go more than 12 hours, from 5:30 a.m. until after the polls close at 7 p.m. County management staff don't get overtime pay, but they will work the same hours.

Reilly said county employees will be at every polling place in the county. In many cases they will serve as "team leaders" and their assistants, the top officials at the polling sites.

Lomax said the county's contribution in this and previous elections has been critical.

"They're in charge of the polling places," he said. "They're not watching, they're working."

The team leaders and their assistants are responsible for putting up directional signs, directing voters, policing the rules prohibiting campaigning near the polls and setting up the voting machines, Lomax said.

"It's absolutely key," he said. "One of the reasons Clark County's elections have gone well since 1998, when I started, is because the county has made a commitment to use county employees at the polling places.

"It provides continuity and accountability," Lomax said.

The elections department must still seek out another 4,000 people to help run the polls, but the fact that there is a permanent, trained pool of professionals helps the system keep running, he said.

County employees say they don't mind getting out from behind their desks. Shaun Schoener, a management analyst for Clark County Administrative Services, did not have to work the polls, but signed up anyway.

"I just felt that it was the responsibility of the county workers to step up when they needed help, especially with this new system going in," Schoener said.

Reilly said most county services will not be affected, but the regular meeting of the Clark County Commission, usually held on Tuesday, has been delayed until Wednesday. Clark County offices will maintain their customer-service staffs, he said.