Cass County election workers get safety training ahead of North Dakota primary

FARGO — With Election Day for the North Dakota primary fast approaching, the judges, clerks, and inspectors who will be running the show in Cass County are getting safety training from the Sheriff’s Department.

Sessions were held on May 29 and 30, teaching workers how to protect themselves and others, even in a worst-case scenario like an active shooter situation.

The training was held at the Fargodome, with election workers gathering to get some tips on how to handle whatever may arise on Election Day, like de-escalation techniques for dealing with voters potentially acting aggressively.

“They’re really just looking for some information on maybe how to de-escalate some of those situations and how to work through them safely. So our training encompasses that training piece, what people can do to make sure that they’re safe. We certainly don’t expect anything to happen. We don’t have any information that anything would happen, this was just more preventive stuff,” said Cass County Sheriff Jesse Jahner.

The training also went over what workers should do in an active shooter situation, telling them things like how to seek proper cover, and how to help others before first responders arrive.

“We really don’t think that anything would ever happen, but at the end of the day if the worst-case scenario did happen, then we can go ahead and people are prepared and able to say, ‘Yep, we took this training, we know how to react in those situations,’” said Cass County Election Administrator Craig Steingaard.

The session itself was a combination of a presentation and hands-on training, with people learning how to use tourniquets, and getting answers to any questions they may have.

“People that have worked at the polling sites before have come across different situations and they’re bringing those situations up so number one, people that may have never worked at them kind of get an idea of some of the situations that they’ve had to deal with,” Jahner said.

For the county, being able to provide as much training as possible to the workers, is all about getting them as prepared as possible for whatever Election Day may bring.

“Just having the confidence of knowing that they have been trained, I think that that’s a big aspect too, is poll workers want to know that the County has given them the knowledge, given them the training to actually react in a bad situation,” Steingaard said.