Election Day volunteers
Officials ‘overwhelmed’ by outpouring of volunteers
After a recruiting drive from multiple organizations, state officials were stunned that 10,000 volunteers have stepped forward to serve as Election Day poll workers.
HARTFORD — After a recruiting drive by multiple organizations, state officials were stunned that 10,000 volunteers have stepped forward to serve as poll workers on Election Day.
With a high-stakes presidential election and many elderly employees unable to work at the polls due to health concerns about catching COVID-19, a coalition of groups started a recruiting drive about six weeks ago. The results have surprised registrars, who have been worried about having enough healthy people to work on Election Day.
“We were overwhelmed by the number of people that volunteered,’’ said Simsbury’s Democratic registrar of voters, Karen E. Cortes. “We probably have 100 people sitting on the bench that we weren’t able to place in positions. I think people are really interested in this election, and people are deciding to do their civic duty. ... We reached the point that we stopped taking their names when they call.’’
The workers will be at the polling places doing things that haven’t been needed in the past, such as making sure there is social distancing on the various lines in school gymnasiums. Most of the workers are being paid, while some are high school students doing service hours for the National Honor Society.
The 10,000 volunteers “wildly surpassed our goals,” said Gabe Rosenberg, spokesman for Secretary of the State Denise Merrill.
Under a decentralized system, Connecticut essentially has 169 locally run elections. With such a large number of volunteers, some might not be needed this year.
“It depends on the town,’’ Rosenberg said. “There’s no way to know — even two weeks in advance — who at the last minute might not be able to do it. In fact, it’s a good thing if all of these people volunteered but they’re not needed. That means that wehad enough poll workers.’’
The list of 10,000 volunteers “can be used as a resource in the future, too, because there’s a national trend of poll workers getting older, and they tend to be demographically fairly old,’’ Rosenberg said. “This is the next generation of poll workers.’’
One of the reasons for the successful recruiting numbers is that the state received