Halloween night, the star trainee at a session for Denver election judges was 8-year-old Star Garcia, who wore sparkly cat ears and a black mask.
Star’s grandmother, Helen Garcia, 68, and two other adults stood in front of one of Denver’s newest voting computers pondering how to activate it.
Star walked around back.
“Right here,” said the catgirl. “It’s that yellow button.”
The computer screen lit up and the adults laughed.
Training sessions in Jefferson and Denver counties this week showed that although some judges are comfortable with computerized voting machines, others are baffled.
Many of the judges are retired and trying to learn new technologies, often after years of working all-paper elections.
“I’ve reached my saturation point,” said Pat Gressett, 77, after more than an hour working with the new computers.
The Denver Election Commission trained the last of its 1,100 election judges Wednesday.
Jefferson County will finish working with 1,250 judges by Saturday. Training in all of Colorado’s 64 counties will finish by Monday.
For a shift that is likely to run 14 hours or more Election Day, the judges will each be paid about $100.
The work will take an hour or two longer than in the past because of new computerized voting machines and new election security requirements.
Addressing a crowd of about 125 volunteers in a Jefferson County Fairgrounds building Wednesday, county election director Susan Miller warned that people shouldn’t drift into a polling place at 6:15 or 6:30 a.m. as they have in the past.
“You need to get there by 6 this time,” Miller said. “You can bring something to read, but I doubt you’ll get a chance to use it.”
Extra security seals and chain-of-custody requirements mean more steps and more paperwork for election officials, she said, especially when opening and closing polls.
Election trainers this week flew through details that judges will need to know Election Day.
They described the oath everyone will take, how and when to break and replace security seals, and how to set up voting computers and make sure no one has yet voted on them.
“You’re going to make mistakes,” said Denver trainer Sal Troici, 74. “Great. Make them here.”
Denver’s training is complicated, Troici said, because judges need to learn two types of computerized machines – old-style Advantages, made by Sequoia Voting Systems Inc., and that company’s newer Edges.
The Advantages are giant screens, displaying the entire ballot on a panel about 3 feet by 3 feet. Tiny lights indicate a voter’s choices.
Edges are newer, more like personal computers and, trainees said, more complicated. Voters should be reminded to scroll through all 11 pages of the ballot, Troici said.
“I want one of them old machines,” said Denise Thompson, who has worked in several past elections.
Troici insisted his judges overcome such fears.
He pulled new judge Barbara Cirivello, 66, to a machine and asked her to bring up ballot style No. 14.
Cirivello shook her head in confusion.
“Try something,” Troici urged. “Don’t be afraid, it will tell you if you’re making a mistake or not.”
Staff writer Katy Human can be reached at 303-954-1910 or khuman@denverpost.com.
