NYT- Conscripting poll workers

[troubleinwinter]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/us/27voting.html?_r=2&ref=us&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

CINCINNATI, Jan. 26 —CINCINNATI— The chronic shortage of election workers in Ohio could be solved by requiring residents to work at the polls the way they fulfill jury duty, the newly elected secretary of state says.

The official, Jennifer L. Brunner, a Democrat who won the office vacated by J. Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican, is asking lawmakers to require conscripted workers to have two days of training and then work eight-hours on Election Day.

....

“Under Ohio law, we’re supposed to have equal numbers of poll workers from both parties at each polling place, but we don’t always,” Ms. Brunner said.

The workers’ average age is 72, and states and advocates around the country are grappling with a shortage of workers, according to research by VoteTrustUSA, a nonpartisan group.

“We are now facing a small crisis,” said Curtis Gans, director of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University in Washington. “Most of the poll workers are older people, and they’re dying off.”

[williesgirl]

1. Makes sense to me as long as companies have to let workers off w/pay less whatever they earn working

the polls. recommended

[ellenfl]

2. all the more reason to hold elections on non-work days. eom

[troubleinwinter]

3. Conscripting workers from voter registrations (jury duty comparison)

(from the article in OP: ) Ms. Brunner... said poll workers would fall under the same rules as jurors and would be drawn from registered voters.

Since voter lists have been used for jury pools in many states for many years, the question of whether jury duty is a deterrent to voter registration has been considered by several scholars. It is a relevant question to consider in light of this study. If citizen awareness that voter data is used for a secondary purpose that may land them on a jury deters one’s desire to register, then what impact will knowledge of other secondary uses have on registration and participation?

States can do one of three things with voter lists and jury duty: they can use only the voter lists to call jurors; they can use voter lists and other lists, such as licensed drivers lists, to call jurors; or they can use different lists altogether. Stephen Knack has studied the likelihood of whether people are registered to vote based on their perception of juror source lists. In an analysis of data from the 1991 National Election Study, Knack found that:

Of survey respondents who named voter registration lists as the sole source for juror lists, 71.4 percent were registered to vote;

Of respondents who named voter lists and at least one other list as the source for juror lists, 77.1 percent were registered to vote;

Of respondents who named drivers license or some list other than voter lists as a juror source, 82.1 percent were registered to vote.

These findings suggest that the more aware people are that voter lists are used for jury duty, the less likely they are to be registered to vote.
http://www.calvoter.org/issues/votprivacy/pub/voterprivacy/discussion.html

Nonvoters were asked to respond to a series of questions about their history of registering to vote. ...One in four says they don’t want to register because they don’t want to get called for jury duty.

"I don’t want to register because I don’t want to get called for jury duty"
Agree 24
Disagree 73
Don't Know 3

http://www.calvoter.org/issues/votereng/votpart/summaryreport.html

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

4. Douglas County Nebraska does it

Thanks for pointing out this article. We have a problem in NC, too.

Its been done here:

Douglas County, Neb., is one of the few counties with such a conscript system. Its election commissioner, Dave Phipps, said the system had worked brilliantly for 20 years.

Half the county’s 2,000 poll workers are “draftees,” required to work in four elections, resulting in fully staffed polls for the 300,000 registered voters.

A drawback is higher absenteeism, Mr. Phipps said, a hurdle overcome by recruiting slightly more workers than needed. Technology-savvy younger people have lowered the average age of poll workers to 52.

[diva77]

6. do you have a link for this info.? this is sooo important for the

movement toward HCPB !!!

:wow:

[diva77]

5. THIS IS THE HOLY GRAIL!!! The key for gaining momentum for HCPB

Would love to have a copy of the document for implementing this and would like to know what it took to make it happen!!!

on edit: I see that it is still "being considered" -- as far as I'm concerned, it's a no-brainer! otherwise you'll see dangerous solutions such as the "corporate pollworker" program in LA county -- imagine your pollworkers being provided by Halliburton!!

[demodonkey]

7. From a 15-plus year Pollworker (me): This is a bad, bad, bad, bad, BAD idea!

Pollworking is NOT the same as jury duty. Not with voting machines. Not even with hand-counted paper ballots.

Jurors are basically required to show up, passively sit there and listen to a case, respond to simple instructions given on the spot by a trained judge (who is there to consult on procedure if they later have questions while deliberating), and render what is basically ONE decision. And should the jurors make a "wrong" decision, their verdict is generally appealable.

Pollworkers must learn (in advance) a rather complicated set of many procedures and instructions, and carry them out actively and independently with little to no available help over a 13-15 (or more!) hour-long day. If an error is made by a pollworker it can potentially totally disenfranchise anywhere from one to a large number of voters and worse yet, the affected voter(s) may never know they had a pollworker-caused problem -- or if they do they will find the situation that disenfranchised them difficult if not impossible to appeal.

Sorry Jennifer Brunner, but there has to be a better way than this to attract and retain new and qualified pollworkers.

The notion that pollworkers can simply be "plugged in" to a spot like Juror #7, seems to me (as a fifteen-year plus dedicated pollworker) to be the height of disrespect for those of us who DO care enough to do this job, do it right, and KEEP doing it year after year after year.

( Please see the article I wrote at http://www.pollworker.us )

[diva77]

8. let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater

I've been a pollworker and true, there were things I didn't know that other more experienced workers explained to me on the job, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't use the jury pool method to fill the need - perhaps there should be an extra offer/requirement for more detailed training and maybe an exam and slightly higher pay for at least 1 higher level pollworker at every precinct to take care of this problem.

the majority of the duties (at least from my experience) are simple and easily learned in minutes

:hi:

[demodonkey]

9. Drafting pollworkers from the pool of voters is still a TERRIBLE idea.

Your own statement is proof.

You claim you were a pollworker but by your own admission you didn't know what you were doing and needed help with things "more experienced workers explained to me on the job".

The day they stick me with some "drafted", um... person, to work with who thinks pollworker duties are "simple and easily learned in minutes" WILL BE THE DAY I QUIT.

If we respected pollworkers, trained them well and paid them well, and made them feel like they were an indispensable part of the electoral process (which they are, but no one treats them as such) we would be able to attract and retain people who CARE, who WANT to be there, and who will do it right.

Our electoral system is in enough trouble as it is without forcing people to be pollworkers and driving away dedicated pollworkers who are there because they want to be. Not to mention discouraging voting and registering to vote by people who can't afford or don't want to take a chance on being drafted to do this.

Very bad idea.

[diva77]

10. it didn't take much "instructing" to teach me how to find someone's name

and address in a book, cross it off with a ruler and ask them to sign their name next to it. I'm glad I had a patient, kind precinct captain who had faith in humanity.:eyes:

oh, and the other duties were making sure people deposited their ballots in the slot, setting up and breaking down voting booths, making sure that addresses were copied into additional books for pollwatchers to access

the most "complicated" tasks occurred at the end of the day -- making sure all of the discarded items were placed in the correct box; making sure that the number of ballots matched the number of names crossed off, etc.

the part that I could've used more training for was the provisional registration -- but I think with 15 minutes of someone's time, I would be able to do that on my own

[EFerrari]

11. too late to rec. but can kick

[OnTheOtherHand]

12. another perspective, from Thad Hall

http://electionupdates.caltech.edu/2007/01/is-working-polls-like-jury-duty.html

It's sort of rambling (those darn academics!), but closes by agreeing with Doug Lewis that any such idea should first be tested in counties of various sizes.

I like the idea in principle, but demodonkey raises an important question, whether the role of pollworker is too complicated to be learned with a relatively small amount of training.

[troubleinwinter]

13. Interesting article. Thank you!

I think the idea of 'incentives' for county employees looks good for many reasons.

They are already pre-screened for literacy, reliability to show up for work, ability to function on a job, and so on.

It also addresses the concern about citizens being reluctant to register to vote, (rightly or wrongly) believing they would be called from voter registration lists.

Ms. Brunner said, “Under Ohio law, we’re supposed to have equal numbers of poll workers from both parties at each polling place, but we don’t always,”

"both parties"? If workers are to be conscripted, all it would take to avoid service would be to register with a third party (or as allowed in California: register as "Decline To State")? With county workers, we can reasonably assume a cross-section of political outlooks?

Demodonkey mentions training. Perhaps this is another advantage to county workers. Rather than two full days training where people who are not committed may fall asleep, theoretically county workers might have two or four hours training once a week (say Thursday afternoons), for as long as it takes.

I certainly agree with testing in various counties. I think ONE county with only 1,000 drafted workers is not a sufficient test.

He states that Los Angeles County has had success with the 'county employee incentive' system. L.A. Co. is a verrry large county, so it indicates that this is a viable system. We have one small county using conscription and one huge county using employee incentive.

Again, thanks for the article.

[OnTheOtherHand]

14. yeah, interesting point on registration

Ohio itself has quasi-open primaries: you can choose to vote for any party in any primary, and that choice determines your affiliation until further notice. So I guess that never voting in a primary would suffice.

But using county workers certainly won't assure partisan balance at polling places, if that is a goal. (Coincidentally, a similar topic just came up in one of my classes -- a student was suggesting that elections should be administered by impartial panels of judges. Great, if only we knew where to find impartial panels of judges!) It would be interesting to know how this plays out in L.A. County.

[diva77]

15. when county employees work in polling place with electronic voting they

sound like salespeople for the vendors - it is a bad idea to have people whose regular jobs are connected to working as pollworkers - they will brag about the machines most likely because they have been instructed to do so and their livelihood depends on it

Working the polls should be simple, easy, low tech (HCPB) and of/by/for the people just like the jury system

[troubleinwinter]

16. I don't understand what backs your assertions.

How are county employees (a street-sweeper driver, a county vehicle maintenance worker, a zoning and building dept. file clerk, a parks and recreation dept. secretary, librarian, etc.) any more likely to be indoctrinated toward machines than volunteer or conscripted poll workers?

Please tell how you know that county workers "sound like sales people for the vendors" or "brag" more than than a nurse, store clerk, or physicist.

"most likely because they have been instructed to do so". Is this a guess? Surely any pollworker can be indoctrinated/sold during training on the idea of machines or ANY system, whether county employee, volunteer or drafted. Or are you asserting that counties are threatening their employees because "their livelihood depends on it"?

[diva77]

17. hi - sorry I took so long to respond -

was gone for awhile and missed your post

clarification: I was referring to the county employees in the Registrar's office -- (registrars that are heavily influenced by vendors) -- not any 'ol county worker

[demodonkey]

19. Indoctrinated INDEED!

Here in PA in May 06 Primary (first use of paperless ES&S iVotronics in my county Westmoreland and around 30 others) pollworkers were taught that no matter what happens, no matter WHAT question was asked, they were to say that the machines are FANTASTIC.

They were all led to cheer "the" word (fantastic) several times out lound en masse ("FANTASTIC!") like some sort of bizarre ritual at a German Youth rally in the early 1940's.

I attended several trainings and saw this word presented same way at each by ES&S staff or staff of William Penn Printing who is ES&S's lackey in PA.

"Fantastic" was reported to the THE word in other counties and areas as well.

Nope. No indoctrination here. Move along citizen, nothing to see.

:grr:

[flyarm]

18. come to fla ..72 is young!!..for our poll workers!!..in fact 72 is youthful!!

i was a poll watcher in 2004 ..for primaries , early vote and general...and i was blown away with how old the poll workers were!!

On general election day ..one poll worker was 96 yrs old..she could not read..she could not sit up in a chair..was leaning over so bad..i was scared she was going to fall off the chair..all day..she really could not read the poll books..the person next to her had to do both her book and the 96 yr old ladies book..and forget the cards for the voting machines..the lady had no idea how to activate them..people had to keep coming back to the table to say their cards were not activated..so they could not vote..

the lead lady there was 89..it took her over 1 hour to do each provisional ballot..i helped her but i was not supposed to..i was only supposed to observe..but people were leaving as the lines became so long for provisional because the lady was too old and too damn slow..and honestly incompetant to do the job..because she was too old and too fragile to be doing it..

and i saw this through the entire process..

in early vote a bunch of retarded people were brought in by bus by republicans..and let loose on the machines..and one girl..bless her heart pulled the entire tape out of the back of the machine..and the poll workers never saw it..and i was forbidden to say anytjhing i had to immediately call in lawyers...but the poll workers ( all well into their 80's) simply stuffed the tape back into the back of the machine and let others vote on the machine over my protests...

jury duty is important..but what is more important than voting??????????


I have been called 5 times in 3 states for jury duty..i have served on 4 juries and 1 time as an alternate..

i believe being a poll worker is equally important..yes equally!!

i will take the training and become a poll worker for 2008...but we need young people as well..
it should not be simply left to the most senior among us and the most fragile..

and another thing i observed was ..most of the poll workers i observed were all republican..

that is in 4 different polling places i worked...all were republican..

please..take this seriously..go sign up.be a poll worker..or a poll watcher..there is no more important thing you can do!!

fly