The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘ This is fantastic’
Thousands answer the call for new poll workers
STAMFORD – Polling places operate on the effort of citizens who verify voters’ names and addresses, direct them to ballot booths, and otherwise see to it that elections run in good order.
Across America, most of those citizens are seniors.
But this is a dangerous election for seniors — they are most likely to suffer the serious consequences of the coronavirus.
So election officials nationwide are recruiting new poll workers for the hotly contested race between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.
Connecticut Secretary of the State Denise Merrill put the word out in July that workers would be needed to staff 800 polls in the state’s 169 municipalities for the Aug. 11 presidential primary and the Nov. 3 general election.
City polling sites require more workers than those in small towns, but each needs a minimum of three workers, state officials have said. So Connecticut’s need on Election Day is, at the very least, 2,400 workers.
But many more — about 10,000 people — have answered the call, said Gabe Rosenberg, communications director for Merrill’s office.
“We hoped to get a few thousand ... this is fantastic,” Rosenberg said. “Everything about COVID has been miserable, but now there is this silver lining of Connecticut residents showing they care about elections and stepping up as democracy heroes.”
Merrill’s office began the recruitment by asking the state’s registrars of voters and town clerks, who hire poll workers, to contact their regulars to see whether they intended to show up on Election Day, Rosenberg said.
“It came back that there was not a major shortage,” he said. “The thing we were concerned about, though, was that the shortage would not manifest until the last minute and then it would be
too late. If people started calling out a week before the election, we might not be able to find replacements.”
They compiled a statewide list of volunteers and copied it to all registrars and town clerks, Rosenberg said.
“They can draw from wherever they need to – there’s no requirement that they draw only from their own town,” he said. “If New Canaan needs workers, the registrar can see if there’s someone on the list from New Canaan and hire them. If not, they can hire someone from Weston or another nearby town.”
Stamford’s Republican Deputy Registrar, Terry Bivona, said that, as of Friday, only a few of the regular poll workers had decided to stay home on Election Day.
“People are canceling, but so far all of the positions are filled,” Bivona said.
There are a lot. The city has 23 polling sites and needs 12 to 15 workers at each – that’s 276 to 345 workers.
Because Connecticut law allows people to register to vote on Election Day, the city needs more workers at the government center, Bivona said.
“We will have eight to ten people in the lobby doing registrations,” she said.
But Stamford, which to date leads the state, by far, in number of absentee ballots distributed by the town clerk, requires more workers than that.
As of Oct. 23, the Stamford town clerk had distributed 24,552 mail-in ballots, according to Merrill’s office. The only town that comes close is West Hartford, with 19,032 ballots distributed.
“We’re going to have about 35 people counting absentee ballots,” Bivona said.
If regular poll workers continue to cancel for fear of COVID-19 contagion, the city has a pool to draw from, she said.
“We have a list of 200 people who are interested in working on Election Day,” Bivona said. “Most are from Stamford, with a few from surrounding towns.”
Many will find out for themselves how hard seniors have worked to pull off elections for so many years.
They tackle 15-hour days for little pay, and must undergo training annually.
They work 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Election Day, bringing their own lunches and dinners that they eat during short breaks.
The pay ranges from nearly $200 to more than $300, depending on the position. Positions begin with identification checker or ballot clerk. The positions of assistant registrar and moderator
— the chief polling place official — require more experience.
Training sessions start at an hour for basic positions and rise to three or four hours for supervisory positions.
The minimum age for poll workers is 16.
In the state, and across the nation, the recruitment effort brought on by COVID-19 will serve a need that reaches beyond Nov. 3, Rosenberg said.
“We know, demographically, that a poll worker shortage is coming because the people who always do it are getting older,” he said. “This is a good starting point for the next generation of poll workers. The registrars now know people in their towns who are interested in doing this in the future.”