Election judge reflects on experience

While the nation seems stretched from a tense election season, one Bigfork resident is less focused on candidates and more concerned with voters.

The night before any election, Tim Altschwager’s sleep is a bit more sporadic than usual. He envisions the five polling booths at the Bigfork station and everything that can complicate election day. He’s not focused on who’s elected — but on how many people get the chance to vote.

“I’ve been volunteering through elections for 22 years,” Altschwager, 65, said. “I’ve been through 11 election cycles, national, local, plus schools, county, water and sewer.”

In his early 40s, Altschwager watched local elections unfold from the polling station for the first time as a volunteer.

Today, he is the chief election judge in Bigfork and works to ease any issues that arise when people arrive to vote. That means if someone shows up to vote and they’re not registered at that location, he connects them to the right one. If someone is confused about how to vote, he guides them through the process.

While he’s watched elections become more polarized over the years, Altschwager said he still views election season with excitement. Because as votes are cast, polling places become a melting pot of people using their vote to be heard, he said.

“There’s hope and anxiety in the room that night — sometimes skepticism — it’s exciting,” he said. “I have my own political beliefs of course. But in elections, my priority is helping people navigate what can be a bewildering experience.”

At the polls, Altschwager has seen people arrive nervous as first-time voters, unsure where to go. Others have come to the polls raving about the candidate not receiving their vote. Some have even entered the station with the smell of whiskey on their breath.

“Every once in awhile we get hollered at about a particular candidate or the process, but there’s also the people who do whatever they can to vote,” Altschwager said.

Once, he watched an older woman who struggled to stand and had poor eyesight turn down disability resources because she wanted to fill in her own ballot by hand like she had done for decades. He said she took 20 minutes to carefully read each candidate’s name and each ballot initiative, her hand shaking as she filled in the circles.

He’s seen a moose hunter run into the office 10 minutes before polls closed. The man, covered in blood from a successful hunting trip, went straight from the woods to the polling place out of fear he had missed his chance.

“He actually signed the register with a bloody thumb print,” Altschwager said.

This election season, he has watched presidential candidates — Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump — run one of the most turbulent races today’s voters have said they can recall.

In a YouGov/Huffington Post survey done in March, out of 1,000 adults interviewed, 76 percent said this election is weirder than past elections they’ve seen. Just 4 percent viewed the campaign season along the lines of normal.

Altschwager said that while every election is a mix of emotion and some frustration, he expects to see some of this year’s stress drip into the polling station.

“This particular season may prove to be more difficult for judges. Even in the primaries, there were more questions and a little more tension from people coming in to vote,” he said.

An October POLITICO and Morning Consult poll conducted among 1,999 registered voters showed that Trump’s repeated warnings about a “rigged” election registered as a real possibility to 73 percent of Republicans. Only 17 percent of Democrats agreed with the prospect of massive fraud at the ballot box.

“I want people to know that their vote will be counted here,” Altschwager said.

In the 42 polling places in Flathead County, the election department tests each machine used to count votes twice.

When voters arrive at a center, they meet at least four election judges. First is the judge stationed at the register book who looks up information and verifies the voter is who they say they are, and verifies that they’re at the correct location.

The next election official is the poll book judge who gives the voter a ballot number, which is determined by the third judge.

The role of the fourth judge is played by people like Altschwager, who make sure each step in the process is done well.

Votes processed through the 43 M100 tabulating machine are delivered to the county elections department to add to final counts. Election judges can also set aside people’s ballots who prefer their choices are counted by hand rather than by the machine.

Altschwager said his favorite part of election night is watching people arrive at the polls who are excited by the chance to vote — even in the chaos that surrounds candidates vying for a position.

“I do this instead of pairing up with party efforts because voting is key to our democracy,” Altschwager said. “It’s our country, this is where we live, what our forefathers established … I understand we have a responsibility as U.S. citizens to choose our leaders — we would be foolish to abandon that no matter the race.”

Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at khoughton@dailyinterlake.com.