Janice Winfrey should have called a news conference last January and said Detroit could not run its 2016 elections effectively without people stepping up to replace aging, incapable poll workers.

Had she done that, the Detroit city clerk, who was widely praised for transforming the department when she ousted former Clerk Jackie Currie in 2005, would not be facing a firestorm of criticism over mishandled voter ballots and malfunctioning machines.

She also wouldn’t have had some precincts where capable veterans worked alongside some people who could not read, weren’t properly trained, weren’t mobile and didn’t know how to use new electronic polling books that long ago replaced paper sheets, one veteran polling supervisor who has worked the polls for 30 years asserted Thursday.

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“The one thing I noticed — and this is where the problem is cropping up — is that a lot of folks have mobility issues and other issues,” said Christopher Flournoy, 52, a residential home improvement salespersonCQ who lives in Russell Woods.

Flournoy has been working the polls since he was in his 20s, and said things are not as they should be.

“I have personally been shocked when I go to training,” he said. “They do provide training and you’ll see people come in on walkers and with crutches, and the one thought I had is how on earth are they going to carry on their responsibilities as an elections inspector?

“The biggest problem is training — and I don’t like to say disparaging things — but the trainers are not trained to provide instruction. They’re winging it. They don’t have people who have been trained to provide training to adults. It becomes a gripe session about the previous election. You get handed some materials and nobody says good luck, but that’s implied. You’ll figure out as you go along."

The average age of poll workers nationwide is 68. Detroit workers are older, Winfrey said earlier this week. And the work is grueling — 15-18 hours with only two one-hour meal times and two other 15-minute breaks.

“We’re getting older folks doing it because they’ve always done it like me, and we’re getting another group doing it because it’s an easy way to make a $150,” Flournoy said.

“I’ve had workers in precincts I supervise who couldn’t read. They absolutely could not read and couldn’t operate the computer,” he said, adding that Winfrey should return to giving the aptitude test she created when she was first elected. “That’s where it goes back to — training. Training is supposed to be mandatory, but I’ve had people to show up and say ‘No, I didn’t do training, but they gave me a credential.' ”

Detroit Elections Director Daniel Baxter disputed Flournoy’s claims and said that all poll workers still take the test, and that all workers, including supervisors, are properly trained. His assertion came six weeks after the presidential election and right after an attempted recount instigated by Green Party candidate Jill Stein uncovered a myriad of problems including missing electronic poll books, vote tallies not matching the number of ballots and ballot boxes turned in very late.

Despite Baxter’s assertion about training, Winfrey herself said in an exclusive interview this week that she has been struggling to find competent people to work the polls.

“We did an initiative this year because we realized our poll workers are aging and we also realized the quality of poll workers was not where we wanted it to be,” she said.

She announced the Democracy in the D program and reached out to more than 100 businesses and community groups.

“We asked them if they would allow their staff to work as poll workers for the day,” she said. “We would come train them and pay them and all they had to do was give them a day as an excused day off.”

Only Quicken Loans responded, sending more than 150 staff members to be trained and to work.

Plenty of blame to go around

Now, let’s stop beating up Winfrey for a second and take a look in the mirror. Our very ability to hold elections across Michigan — but especially in Detroit — is threatened by apathy and a lack of civic responsibility. Winfrey has tried unsuccessfully to get more people to help hold up this sacred process. Few have cared. Can you imagine the outcry if she announced that we could NOT hold an election because we didn’t have the workers to conduct it?

Shame on all of us.

There are solutions, some doable.

Local universities could give students credit for being trained and working at the polls. Not only would it be a great civics lesson, but it would help make sure what happened on Election Day doesn’t happen again.

Local companies whose CEOs profess to be civic-minded could heed Winfrey’s call for help the next time she makes it. A single company stepping up when she cried out for help? Wow.

And finally, but most unlikely, state Elections Director Chris Thomas could spend some of the $100 million in federal Help America Vote dollars the state received in 2003 to pay people to work polls rather than spend those dollars on updating voting machines.

That's unlikely.

Winfrey is taking some heat following her interview with me for using the term “raggedy” to talk about the way things are sometimes done in Detroit.

Shame on us for pretending she’s wrong.

From our beleaguered and ineffective schools to a questionable blight-removal program to old voting machines, sometimes things are raggedy. We settle for too little in Detroit when we should demand more.

If we want better, we have to all participate in getting it.

Makes you wanna holla

But now back to Winfrey, who didn’t tell the state about problems with, or demand new, voting machines after the 2012 election — and who didn’t call that news conference to demand that we step up and do what we should to protect the integrity and sanctity of our greatest American right — voting.

When stuff makes you wanna holla, then holla.

And if you find that the people who are stepping up are not right for the duty, there’s not enough training in the world to put someone who cannot read — as at least a third of Detroit adults cannot — in charge of something so important. The training has to be tight.

Even Flournoy, who said he isn’t one of Winfrey’s favorite people after complaining to the ACLU about prayers being conducted before training sessions — they were stopped — feels she’s capable of doing the job if people step up and provide the support every election deserves.

And election officials from other cities across metro Detroit, who didn’t want to talk on the record, sent letters to say Detroit isn’t alone — something the state elections director confirmed.

“This is a state issue,” Thomas said. “This is not a Detroit issue.”

But in Detroit, "this is the problem,” Flournoy said. “A lot of these folks have been around as long as I have, some even longer. They remember the way things used to be. When I started it was completely manual, determining whether a voter was in the right place. The police would deliver a huge binder with actual voter registrations. Sometimes you’re looking at a card that’s 40 or 50 years old delivered to the precinct. You put a stamp on that card.”

“Then the state took over the active voter file and they would produce a computer generated list. It was different, but still paper. You could find a person and put the mark in the book.”

Now, Detroit, like every other city across the country, needs 21st-Century workers for 21st-Century elections that will become only more digital and complicated with time. It will take people capable of tackling the duty to step up and do the duty.

“I guess I’ve been de-motivated by the results of the election,” Flournoy said. “But I’ll definitely work elections until I feel — or somebody tells me — you’re no longer able to do this.

“I don’t think there’s a number that means you’re too old. It’s about capability.”

And for those of us who are capable, it's time to step up.

Contact Rochelle Riley: rriley99@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @rochelleriley.