LONGTIME COUNTY ELECTION JUDGES KNOW VOTING ROPES

Before most of us were awake today, 199 Cape Girardeau County election judges opened the polls.

It will be a long day for all of them. The judges had to show up at 5:15 a.m., will have to stay until the polls close at 7 p.m., then either drive the ballots to Jackson or stay and disassemble equipment.

For 13 hours of work, each judge receives a $60 check. They get $5 more to be supervisory judges, who are responsible for the work at the precincts and for getting the ballots back to Jackson.

Edgar R. Lorenz of rural Shawneetown remembers when the pay was only $3 a day for even more work.

Lorenz isn't sure but believes his first day working as an election judge was in November 1956, when Dwight Eisenhower was running for re-election. Back then election judges were required to count ballots by hand.

The Republican was a farmer with young children back then. His wife, Berniece, characterized the times as "meager." When someone recruited him to work at the polls, Lorenz jumped at the chance.

"It was a way to get out of the fields," he said. "Hamburgers were only 10 cents and sodas were 5 cents, so $3 wasn't too bad."

Even after facing cancer, diabetes and cataract surgery, Lorenz keeps going to the Immanuel Lutheran Church basement in New Wells on Election Day. Most of the election judges who started when he did are gone now -- either deceased or moved.

Lorenz plans to keep working as long as he can read and write.

"He brings snacks, and he drinks coffee and diet sodas all day," his wife said. She used to work at the polls back when Lorenz was busy in the fields.

Pat Abernathy's 25 years as an election judge yielded several friendships and one brush with fame. The 63-year-old Jackson Democrat was planning to work at Byrd 3 precinct in 1976 when television journalist Walter Cronkite called.

Cronkite had heard the saying, "As Byrd 3 goes, so goes the nation." Abernathy's job was to call him with her precinct's results in the presidential race. The local voters elected Jimmy Carter, and so did everyone else.

After more than two decades at her job, Abernathy can predict the outcomes of several races just by how many people come to the polls at certain times of the day. Her theory is that "no" voters come between 9-11 a.m. and "yes" voters between 1 and 3.

But little of her day is spent sitting and watching people; she has to initial ballots, initial envelopes, help the disabled into the voting booths and check ballots to be sure the punch-card process was done correctly.

Sometimes Abernathy has to discourage people who try to campaign within 25 feet of the polls.

"We can't tell them to take off candidates' hats and T-shirts, but it's better if they don't wear them at all," she said. "If they wear them, they should just come in, vote and leave."

The blood of election judges runs through Cape Girardeau Republican Dortha Strack's veins. Her maternal grandfather, J.F. Hawn, was an election judge. Her mother, Evelyn Borgfield, also was an election judge.

"You could say I was born into it," said Strack, 63.

Her family lived on a farm. A flood-prone creek ran between the farmhouse and the road, so her grandfather had to stay with neighbors if it was going to rain. Otherwise, he would couldn't get to the polls.

Strack's first year as an election judge was 1951. Another judge got sick, and the county clerk asked Strack to fill in. Except for a few elections, she has been working the polls ever since.

Strack remembers making $6 after working from dawn until after the sun set. In those days, one person read off the ballots while two others made marks next to each candidate's name. For every five votes received by a candidate, the markers yelled ou~t, "Tally!" If they didn't yell at the same time, Strack said, it was time to start over.

Her current assignment is the Hanover precinct, and the polling place is at Hanover Lutheran Church in the parish hall. She expects today to be busy.

"I would rather be busy," she said. "When you don't have many people, the day is long."

Election supervisor Patty Schlosser said her office is expecting 80 percent of the county's voters to participate in the election. Instead of the required four election judges at each precinct, several have six.

She said there is a constant demand for election judges in Cape Girardeau County. To qualify a person must be a registered voter, be of "good repute" and be able to speak, read and write English.