Several present and past election judges in Upshur County are expressing dissatisfaction with the county’s election procedures, although a few say they are pleased with the way County Clerk Peggy LaGrone’s office is conducting elections.

Two election judges—Glenn Leach and De’Borah Bankston—have publicly expressed complaints this year with the conduct of elections.

Ms. LaGrone meantime has defended her handling of them.

The Mirror did a telephone survey Tuesday of six other current or former election judges in the county to ask whether they were satisfied with the election process and what, if any problems, they were experiencing with election equipment and procedures.

Four of the six—one of whom is running against Ms. LaGrone for county clerk in the March 2 Republican primary—said they were dissatisfied.

The newspaper also contacted, or attempted to, several other judges who either said they were new and had not yet conducted an election as judge, or who were not available for comment.

Complaints ranged from a lack of training for judges to requiring that judges deliver election equipment to their polling places.

(Ms. LaGrone refused county commissioners’ request to instead have county employees deliver the equipment for last November’s election on proposed amendments to the Texas Constitution. She has said that would put too much liability on the county.)

Wendy Tompkins, judge for the Pct. 1 voting box at the county “Rock Building” in Gilmer, said she was probably “somewhat dissatisfied” with current procedures as “there are some things that could be implemented that would make the process definitely better.

“Probably one of my biggest concerns, I guess, with the equipment is not so much the equipment itself as the training to use the equipment,” Ms. Tompkins said. “I feel like that there needs to be more training involved other than just a day. It’s kind of complicated, and you know, you kind of get thrown in there to use the equipment and one day’s training certainly isn’t enough.”

Cynthia Ridgeway, judge for the Ore City box, echoed Ms. Tompkins’s complaint about training.

“I have to say that I am dissatisfied for the reason that I do not feel that I had adequate training,” Mrs. Ridgeway said.

She said she worked as an election judge for many years in Houston before moving back here, “and I kept waiting to have training (here) like...I was expecting to have.”

She said she received adequate training in Houston, “but not here because I haven’t done it (held elections) in a few years and the new electronic machinery is new since I conducted elections.”

Mrs. Ridgeway said she told one of Ms. LaGrone’s deputies that she needed training “and she (the deputy) ran over it with me just the one time.”

The Ore City judge also said she called the Clerk’s Office throughout election day last November and the female deputy answered her questions. But when she was closing the polls, Mrs. Ridgeway said, she couldn’t reach the Clerk’s Office and wasn’t sure what to do to close out a machine.

“I did manage to get it done,” she added.

Mrs. Ridgeway also complained that “there were some supplies that were missing.” She said she had no pens and only one stamp to mark who had voted. But fortunately, she said, her alternate judges had their stamps from previous elections.

Tina Smith, who has acted as judge at the South Diana polling place at a New Diana school campus and who is among several candidates running for Ms. LaGrone’s job, expressed unhappiness over the way last November’s election was held. (Mrs. Smith won’t be a judge in the March GOP primary since she is a candidate, said Republican Party of Upshur County Chairwoman Brenda Patterson, who nominates the election judges).

Mrs. Smith said that when she brought the election equipment to the courthouse on election night, there was “no place to park whatsoever for the election judge.”

An elderly woman who was her alternate judge had to sit with the equipment while “I had to go find a place to park.”

“I don’t think that that’s correct,” said Mrs. Smith. She asked “why not deliver it (the equipment) to the precinct where it’s supposed to go?...Why leave it up to the judges to go get the equipment to carry it around in their vehicles to (possibly) be tampered with?”

She also asked why the equipment shouldn’t instead be taken to the voting place to be locked up and secured the day before the election.

In addition, Mrs. Smith asked, “Why did we have to stay in line for so long?” at the courthouse to turn in their ballots and equipment.

“We’d been at the school since 6 o’clock in the morning,” she pointed out.

Another judge who complained about the process was Pam McKenzie, who works the Big Sandy School polling place.

She said she was “not very happy with” the conduct of elections.

“I agree with the (complaint about) parking on when we get up there to take our stuff in. And as for the machines (on which people vote), I believe last time, my machine—something happened and we couldn’t get it started, and that sort of threw everything off-kilter,” Ms. McKenzie said.

Ms. McKenzie said she had heard there would be parking outside the courthouse “just for the judges; there wasn’t.” She also groused that election training “hasn’t been very helpful” and that she didn’t like having to be responsible for taking down election equipment at the polling place.

But two election judges pronounced themselves satisfied with the election process.

Denice McDonald, judge at the Glenwood voting box, said, “I had absolutely no problem with my equipment” in last November’s amendment election. And “every time I called the clerk’s (Ms. LaGrone’s) office, I got right through.”

“I never got put on hold that day. If I had any questions, I got my questions answered very quickly and very thoroughly,” the Glenwood judge said.

“I think it’s (the election process) going very smoothly,” Ms. McDonald added.

Another who expressed satisfaction with the process was Linda Ambrose, who has been judge at the Rocky voting box at the Gladewater Former Students Building.

Her husband, Ken Ambrose, is one of three candidates for GOP county chairman in the upcoming Republican primary.

“I’m not having any problems” currently, Mrs. Ambrose said. She said that when she once had a problem with a voting scanner, which hadn’t been set up properly, she called Ms. LaGrone’s office, which resolved the problem “while I was on the phone.

“It wasn’t them that didn’t set it up properly,” Mrs. Ambrose added.