How do I get my hot surface ignitor to ignite?
First, never get anything on the igniter like finger oil. 
Depending on the circuit board it may be a constant voltage or a variable voltage ignition system. If it is constant voltage you should get a constant 120 volts +/- . If it is a variable voltage system then it shouldn’t be much above 90 volts. The variable voltage system was supposed to extend the life of the igniter by only using the bare minimum voltage. It would try about 60 volts and if it didn’t ignite it would up the volts until it did. The only problem with the system was that when the igniter did fry it tended to take the board with it. Either you aren’t taking a proper meter reading or the board is bad. With either board the most you should be reading is line voltage and it should stay on for at least 10 seconds or so.