Be civically engaged, and earn $170 at the same time as a student election judge on Feb. 24.

Becoming an election judge simply requires the submission of an application form which can be found at http://www.slechicago.org. However, there are certain requirements that a student must meet to be an election judge.

Students must be in good standing with a grade point average of 3.0 and they must be U.S. citizens who can read, speak, and write English competently. They must also be able to attend a four hour training session prior to the election. Finally, they must show up promptly at 5 a.m. on Election Day to their precinct and be prepared to work until all duties are completed after polls close.

As an election judge, students would assume responsibilities that include opening the polling place and setting up equipment for voting at 5 a.m. on Election Day, conducting a fair and impartial election in the precinct polling location to which they are assigned and allowing for voting to occur from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. And finally, they will tabulate the vote totals for their assigned precinct and transmit the results to Election Central.

Student election judges may receive an additional compensation of $25 if they offer to volunteer to pick up the keys for their polling location and/or use their cell phone number for official election business. Payments are usually sent 4-6 weeks after Election Day.

Any income earned is subject to federal income tax, though the income is not subject to tax withholding. Therefore, judges will be receiving their pay in full, but will receive a W2 form for tax reporting purposes.

In last year’s November Elections, NEIU was ranked #4 in the number of students of universities in the city who worked as election judges, with 77 students serving on Election Day.

Student Election Leaders is a program that is offered by the Chicago Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights and is partnered with the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.

The deadline to apply as a student election judge is Jan. 19.