Chapter 2 – Basic Poll Watcher Rights & Responsibilities

2.D.8. Election Authority

The Election Authority (i.e., the County Clerk or Board of Election Commissioners) performs essential election management functions such as securing the Polling Place, providing election materials, seeing that voting machines and tabulators are functioning correctly.

What the Election Authority is not is the supervisors of the Election Judges. An Election Authority cannot give Election Judges orders. Election Judges are under the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court.

Election judges can ask the opinion of the County Clerk or the Board of Election Commissioners, but must weigh that opinion and make a decision on their own.

2.D.8.a. The Election Authority In the Polling Place

The Election Authority and representatives of the Election Authority are allowed in the Polling Place upon displaying their official identification. The Election Judge decides if they have to sign in or not.

From one hour before the polls open until after the polls close and the ballots are canvassed, secured, and sealed — except for technicians dispatched to the Polling Place — the Election Authority and representatives of the Election Authority are in the Polling Place under the same rules as a poll watcher:

• They cannot touch election materials, unless they are dropping off those materials.
• They cannot touch election equipment.
• They cannot instruct a voter on the use of election equipment.
• They cannot instruct or assist a voter in depositing a ballot in the ballot box/tabulator.
• They must provide that "the secrecy of the ballot is not impinged".