Trained in law, she found her passion in elections

When the integrity of elections in Anoka County was challenged recently, Rachel Smith eagerly explained why nearly 4,000 county voters were listed in the last election as 100 or older.

No, their apparent longevity had nothing to do with Anoka County's quality of life. Smith, the county's elections manager, told how birth dates were not required on Minnesota voter registrations before 1983 and that arbitrary dates were assigned to previously registered voters throughout the state. A common birth year chosen was 1900.

The statewide voter registration concerns brought forward by Minnesota Majority, a "traditional values" coalition formed last year, and addressed by Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, provided Smith with a chance to show that the biggest winner at the polls Nov. 4 may be the system itself.

A lawyer who spurned the courtrooms and cast her vote for a career managing elections, Smith, 31, has been an endless ball of energy since mid-September, as she and her staff have been continuously coordinating with 21 cities and nine school districts, examining 135 styles of ballots used across 124 Anoka County precincts.

Every candidate's name is checked for spelling and for office filed, and every font is scrutinized a minimum of 10 times by Smith herself. She has made a video for the county's website, telling voters to know their correct polling places, what ID to bring and, generally, helping them through the voting process.

"We keep stats from every election and I'll look back and ask, 'Did we come close to running out of ballots?'" said Smith. "How much public interest is there this time? How many people might register on Election Day?

"We ordered 200 percent [ballots] of the current registered voters," she said. "It's better than running out," which, she says, the county never has. "And it's cheaper than hand-counting."

Smith, whose daughter, Eleanor, turns 1 in late November, is a bundle of enthusiasm who welcomes challenges. She and staff members Diane Teff, Susan Hosford and Kay Barrett have put in long hours for weeks.

They'll think nothing of arriving at the county government center Nov. 4 hours before the polls open, leave hours after votes have been tallied, and then come back around dawn the next day to continue their checks and balances. On Nov. 13, there will be a hand count of selected precincts.

Route to the position

The path that led Smith to her elections manager's job has as many twists and turns as any political road.

A native of Rochester, Minn., Smith majored in sociology at the University of Minnesota. Before graduating in 1999, she served as an intern at the Minnesota secretary of state's office, working in the election office.

She moved on to William Mitchell College, where she would earn her law degree in 2002, but she'd been bit mightily by the election bug.

Lawyers' jobs were scarce in May of 2002 -- still just months after the shock of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. When Smith learned that Joe Mansky, her former elections' boss at the secretary of state's office, had become Ramsey County elections manager, she was only too willing to help when he said he needed assistance for the 2002 election.

With her fiancé and future husband, Matthew Smith, having just graduated from law school at the University of Wisconsin, "we were dirt poor, living in Minneapolis and eager for any kind of work."

But what an election to be working! On the day the Smiths took oaths as lawyers, they were eating lunch when they learned that Paul Wellstone's plane had crashed near Eveleth, killing the senator, his wife, Sheila, and daughter, Marcia. The crash sent the state into shock and voters scurrying to the phones with questions.

"A sad time," Smith said, "and a weird time to be working an election."

Rachel and Matthew were married a month after the election and in February of 2003, she was hired by a small Bloomington law firm. She left after only a few months. A law office couldn't compare to an elections office, she thought.

A vacancy allowed her to return to Ramsey County. In 2005, she was hired as Anoka County's elections manager. She also teaches a political science course at the University of Minnesota. And she's a mom.

With a plate that crowded, Smith knows she needn't worry about one thing.

"I've already voted," she said. "I vote absentee. I never have time to vote on Election Day."

Paul Levy • 612-673-4419