FREDONIA - The men and women who run the elections in Chautauqua County will have a new state-of-the-art tool to learn the specifics relating to their duties in poll site operation.
The Chautauqua County Board of Elections and SUNY Fredonia's student television station WNYF-TV have teamed up to produce a training video for the Internet to teach county election inspectors how to do their Election Day jobs.
"The Fredonia college students are doing a tremendous job working with our elections staff to produce a high quality training video for our election inspectors," said Anthony Popielarz, board of elections' election inspector training coordinator.
The college is producing six 10-minute videos covering: election day responsibilities, sensitivity to Persons of Limited English Proficiency and voters with special needs, voting machine operation procedures, the voting process that includes every American's having the right to vote, forms and documentation to establish a paper trail to prove the transparency of the election, and poll site shut down.
In addition to Popielarz and the students, election trainers Pat Dashiell, Elaine Mulville and bilingual assistant area election director Cyndie Barr will be handling the technical aspects of the film.
"We intend to take training for election inspectors in our county into the 21st century," said Brian C. Abram, election commissioner. "The state Board of Elections put together an online training tool for inspectors. We are taking their information, localizing and condensing it to a more usable format for Chautauqua County."
"We are really excited to be partnering with our local college to provide a first class training video," added Norman P. Green, election commissioner. "We plan to make this new training tool available to our election workers during the first week in October, just in time for the Nov. 6 general election."
The board of elections has been working with Johnathan M. Matey, president and general manager of WNYF and Benjamin Kamm, vice president and WNYF station manager. The faculty adviser is Mark Kiyak, assistant professor of communication.