Rachelle Bauerle Promises Service and Visibility in Run for Madison County Clerk and Recorder
Rachelle Bauerle’s work as an election judge during the COVID-19 pandemic sparked her interest in running for Madison County Clerk and Recorder. Learn more about the experience behind her campaign.
Rachel Bauerle Discusses Her Campaign for Madison County Clerk and Recorder
MADISON COUNTY - As Election Day approaches, Madison County Clerk and Recorder candidate Rachelle Bauerle is sharing her mission with voters.
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The County Clerk and Recorder handles “all of your most important documentation,” Bauerle explained, from birth, death and marriage certificates to deeds and plat maps. The office also oversees elections in Madison County. Bauerle noted that her goals, if elected, are to increase the office’s visibility and act as a public servant.
“When you’re asking for votes, when you’re being paid by taxpayer dollars, you have a responsibility then to the people who are paying for your position,” she said. “That’s exactly what the elected piece of it means. I take that very seriously. I have a lot of ideas about how that could be more user-friendly for people in Madison County, but also to create that sense of connectedness.”
Bauerle grew up in Granite City with a father who worked in the mill and a mother who came from a farming background. She graduated from Granite City High School and then attended SIUE’s School of Nursing. Today, she has two adult children and lives in Edwardsville.
Bauerle became an election judge during the COVID-19 pandemic. It “blew [her] mind” to realize most election judges were older citizens, with very few younger volunteers. She “fell in love” with the election judge position and process, which sparked her interest in the Madison County Clerk and Recorder role.
Bauerle feels that the clerk and recorder should be present in the office when it is open, and, if elected, she hopes to implement a calendar that shares her availability. She added that the employees in both offices are “truly experts” at their jobs, and the clerk and recorder should work to support them.
As she has been campaigning, Bauerle has discovered that Madison County is “very big and very diverse.” She said she is gaining a better sense of what each community needs.
“It’s a huge county. I’m trying to be everywhere and meet people everywhere, because I think it’s important to do that,” she said. “One of the things that I’m finding is that there are certain parts of the county where people kind of feel forgotten sometimes. I’ve had lots of conversations where I’ve knocked on the door or met someone at an event and they’re like, ‘We never see anybody. We don’t know who our County Board representative is. We don’t know who our state rep is.’ That’s shocking to me. It just doesn’t make sense that nobody’s coming out here to say hello.”
With this in mind, Bauerle emphasized the importance of engaging with voters. She believes all elected positions should be “public servant-minded,” with a focus on giving back to the community and representing people. She noted that this is at the forefront of her mind as she prepares for Election Day.
“I think that’s kind of what has eroded people’s faith in government, in the political process — they have felt ignored for a long time. A lot of people that I’ve spoken to maybe haven’t voted in a while or have no plan to vote because they just think, ‘What’s the point?’” she added. “I hope that we can get back to a government that is public servant-minded. The people who are having election positions aren’t doing this for personal gain, but they do it because they want to make their community, their county, their state, their country better. Because that was the intended purpose.”
For more information about Rachelle Bauerle as a candidate for Madison County Clerk and Recorder, visit her official candidate website.
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