As other political junkies spent yesterday evening watching the slow count of votes from the Maryland primary, I was grinding into my fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth hours as an election judge. I entered my precinct before 6 a.m. and didn’t leave until almost 11 p.m.
It wasn’t supposed to be quite that grueling — the polls were slated to close at 8 p.m., and tear down only takes an hour because both a Republican judge and Democratic judge are required to participate in just about every step to guarantee that there is no partisan hanky-panky. But there’s just no having an …read more

Most people assume that the only way to make money from an election is to bet on the outcome or sell their vote. In reality, you can make a day’s wages by offering to work as an election judge in your precinct. Depending on your state, your local election board will pay anywhere between $30 and $150 — this is one of those variable expenses that makes the actual cost of an election so hard to determine, by the way — for an election judge. This isn’t just a once every four years sort of thing, by the way. Primaries …read more