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Election 2024
Matt Sepic
Minneapolis

'I thought it would be fun.' 92-year-old election judge has served voters for 7 decades

lady stands in front of a poll station
Lifelong Crow Wing County resident Helen Burgstaler has served as an election judge since she turned 18 in 1950.
Steve Kohls via Brainerd Dispatch | 2020

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Around 30,000 Minnesota election judges are checking in voters and handing out ballots Tuesday at polling places across the state. Many are regulars who’ve served their communities for years, even decades. But you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who’s been at it longer than Helen Burgstaler.

Now 92, Burgstaler has worked as an election judge in Crow Wing County for 74 years.

“I became a judge when I was 18.”

It was 1950. Harry Truman was in the White House and television was in its infancy. Burgstaler — who grew up on a dairy farm near Aitkin — said that fall she got word that election judges were needed at a schoolhouse down the road that doubled as a polling place.

“I didn’t have too much to do on the farm at that time, so I thought it would be fun,” Burgstaler said Monday in a phone interview with MPR News.

1950 wasn’t a presidential election year, but there was a gubernatorial race in Minnesota. Republican Luther Youngdahl won re-election to a third two-year term in a landslide, beating DFL challenger Harry Peterson with nearly 61 percent of the vote.

Burgstaler was too young to cast a ballot in that election. The 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18 from 21, wouldn’t be ratified until 1971.

While the principles of democratic elections remain steadfast, Burgstaler has seen some big technological changes over the years.  These days, voters generally feed their hand-marked ballots into optical scanners for efficient tabulation.

Burgstaler said that in 1950, the procedure for handling ballots was a bit more involved.

“You had to actually seal them with glue or something and even tie a ribbon around them. They were really careful that you did it right.”

The ballots then had to be driven to the county’s election office in Brainerd.

The community where Burgstaler lives has since switched to voting by mail. That’s long been an option for Minnesota cities with fewer than 400 registered voters and townships of any size. Over the decades, election officials have posted her to polling places around Crow Wing County.

Burgstaler said being an election judge is something she sees as a patriotic duty.

“Like I tell people, I don’t care how you vote, but vote. There’s a lot of people who’ve lost their lives to keep that freedom.”

Burgstaler says this may be her last election as a judge in Crow Wing County, but she plans to work a full day at a polling place in the Baxter area. Polls across the state are open until 8 p.m.