Opinion : Election workers rank right up there next to the voters

Our absentee ballot counters, taking a well deserved break around supper time.

The poll workers in the courthouse.

Hard workers at the skate center processing voters

Having worked with the auditor's office a few times to facilitate elections, I know this job is a long hard day of mostly sitting. It sounds simple and for the most part, it is. Unless you were the folks that had to open absentee ballots and run those this year, that is a LOT more work.

Having done this job I never even question if our county is a safe place to vote. So many safeguards are put in place to make sure that shenanigans are not happening on election day. The staff in the auditor's office is made up of a group of stellar workers who oversee and help to facilitate our elections. Efficient and thorough, they double-checked and yes triple-checked to make sure that the ballots that came in were all accounted for. Then the ballots were processed by multiple people to make sure that every ballot was still where it should be, and that they were run through the machine.

The process of opening the several hundred ballots that arrived early, fell to the workers in the first photos. Really, this group had been there for about 10 hours when I took the pictures of them taking a well-deserved break. The smiling folks in the third photo were at the courthouse accepting ballots for our townships in the northern part of the county and were kept busy most of the time they assured me, until I stepped in to take a picture of course. I can verify that is true because I saw a crowd exiting the building when I pulled up. The skate center was its usual well-oiled machine, housing four different precincts.

All of these people are paid for their work on election day, but most are either taking on the job as an extra job and some are retired and enjoy the chance to work on election day. Whatever their place in the day, they are overlooked many times as being the ones that really make election day run smoothly.

Thanks to all of the workers throughout all of Benton County. Thanks to our very organized and I'd say perfectly run auditor's office who again, brought in another election day for Benton County. Thanks to the folks in other parts of the courthouse that kept everything running from computers to greeting folks at the door.

Great job Benton County!