Anoka County official outlines how local elections are run, urges residents to serve as election judges

An Anoka County agency official said administering an election "is a massive undertaking," and laid out which tasks are handled at the county and municipal levels while urging residents to consider serving as election judges.

The official said the county election office has four full-time staff — a director, a lead election specialist, a technician and an election specialist — who design ballots, program and test voting equipment and prepare forms and supplies for each election. "We handle all the absentee ballots," the official added, and the office also runs in-person absentee voting and manages voter registration, including military and overseas voting.

Municipal clerks and their staff also play a central role, the official said: each city or town clerk stores and tests local equipment, conducts in-person absentee voting, hires election judges, handles candidate filing and campaign finance for local candidates, and sets up polling places. "Our municipalities do a lot to make sure our elections run smoothly," the official said.

Describing the workforce that runs polling places, the official called election judges "the backbone of our elections," and said they are residents of Anoka County who staff polling places on election day. The official said there can be about 1,500 election judges serving across the county on election day and up to about 100 additional judges during the absentee period. The office also strives to ensure party balance among judges wherever they are used.

The official closed by encouraging anyone who wants to learn more about the election process to sign up to be an election judge and said the office will provide more information in future materials about judges' specific duties.