Published: April 07, 2008 04:49 pm            

Gaining experience

Election board secretary working way through 2008

Lue Ann Root used to take a day off work on election days to work in her precinct.

Now she is in charge of all the precincts and much more. Root was named Garfield County Election Board Secretary, Aug. 1, 2007, appointed by state Sen. Patrick Anderson. She was formerly first deputy Garfield County Court Clerk.

Being election board secretary is a totally different job, she said.

“Everything is so detailed. The detail required in this job,” she said. That was her biggest surprise. Every job requires exacting detail because she must be able to show anyone who inquires exactly what happens all the way through the election. One thing that helps is the state’s standardized voting system, which casts and counts ballots the same way in every precinct and every county.

“Oklahoma has the best system going,” she said.

Since taking office she has been through six elections including the April 1, school runoff elections. The first was the October school bond issue and the presidential preferential primaries.

“The presidential preference primary was quite the experience,” she said.

At the same time a the flu was hitting people throughout the county and precinct workers were struggling. She credits the county precinct workers for doing an outstanding job.

Root has not changed anything in the office.

“I inherited a very well run office and I hope to do as well. There are no new state directions and we will function the same way this year,” Root said.

She attended required training by the Oklahoma State Election Board which monitored her first election. There is also a regional coordinator in Rogers County who gives advice and answers questions if asked.

Root also was surprised at the amount of recordkeeping between elections. When an election resolution is filed to begin an election the election board is involved until after the election is held.

Between elections, voters registration applications are processed, along with changes in registration, which are constant because of our mobile society, and they assist with reports of registered voters.

Root does all those things with two full-time staff. On election day that staff multiplies. There are 96 precinct workers in the county, plus an absentee voting board who work nursing homes and count absentee ballots, in addition to numerous box carriers to take ballot boxes to precinct officials cars, then bring them back in after the election.

Root thinks it is an important job, a feeling she inherited from her parents.

“Voting is our duty and privilege, I got that from them,” she said.