Decline in poll workers is a worrying symptom for democracy
Pennsylvanians vote at 9,000 polls and those polls need about 45,000 people to man them. Allegheny County will need 6,800 poll workers to staff its 1,324 voting precincts. County election boards have the responsibility of finding and training people to work on the polls.
As explained in a Post-Gazette story by Sydney Carruth, that’s not going to be easy. It has often been a challenge to get enough workers, with the low pay and long hours. But now it has become unusually hard, for several reasons.
For one, America’s “volunteer culture” has declined and as Americans have become less involved in their community, the natural supply of workers has steadily shrunk. American simply don’t engage as much in this kind of work as we did.
Another reason is that with the anger of the last presidential election, and the next one promising to be even more contentious and angry, many workers have decided to quit and many others not to start. No one wants to be abused and threatened — and perhaps even face death threats — just for doing a civic duty. The actions of Donald Trump, targeting individual election works for abuse, loom particularly large.
But finally, and most worrying, many Americans have lost some of their belief in the value of democracy and our democratic institutions. Some have lost theirs completely. Voting is our greatest symbol of democracy and our greatest and most significant democratic act. No one who doesn’t believe in the value of democracy will take the time and effort to help people vote.
This presidential election will be the last contest between Joe Biden and Mr. Trump, the last battle between what tens of millions of Americans believe to be the symbols of good and evil whose campaigns will determine the future of democracy and of America. We hope that after this, our political life might go some ways back to normal, to political antagonisms that are intense but not ultimate.
But there’s a test coming. Was the rise in the number of voters and in political passions during these years a real exercise of faith in democracy? Or was it the product of polarization and each side’s deep fear of the other’s candidate? In other words, will Americans show that they believe in voting or that they believe in voting only when they’re worried for the country’s future? Will we find that the polarization hides a deeper apathy and disengagement?
County election boards are trying creative ways to increase the number of election workers, the most notable being simply to raise the pay. That will help, and may with the other measures get the state the number of election workers we need. But it won’t be a permanent answer unless more Americans begin to recover a belief in the importance of the vote.