you’ve been drafted . . . for election duty
Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner proposed last week to make election duty similar to jury duty. “. . . Occasionally working the polls would be a mandatory part of a registered voter’s life.
It’s an intriguing idea worthy of debate.
As this article points out, nationally, the average age of a poll worker is 72. As a former poll worker myself, I can corroborate that it’s an older group of citizens. While the advancing age of workers isn’t a bad thing, it does limit how much technology can advance at the polling place.
Several years ago Nashville started using a limited number of PDAs loaded with the voter database to check for current registrations. The old way of checking the database was to call an (always busy) phone number and talk with an election official at the Metro Election Offices. During a busy election when there are dozens of what are called “fail safe” voters at each precinct, the phone delay results in the precinct captain being dedicated solely to this task instead of watching over the entire polling place.
When I asked an election official about making the PDAs more accessbile to each of the 172 precincts in the county so as to eliminate the need to call downtown to check the voter database, this official told me that there were a limited number of precinct captains who were comfortable enough with technology to use them. Apparently, too many of the poll workers think PDA means “public display of affection.”
“Drafting” poll workers also helps to restore some randomness to the election process. Tennessee law gives both parties the right to have an equal number of poll officials in each precinct. Here in heavily Democratic Davidson County, there are dozens of precincts, where, if there is a Republican living there, they wouldn’t admit it out loud. I suspect that heavily Republican counties and precincts face the opposite problem across the state. And third parties aren’t guaranteed representation at all. Election selection rules–or, if you prefer, a type of voir dire process–could create a balanced tribunal of election officials at each polling place.
I’m not saying that I’m fully on board with this proposal, but it does offer the hope of making the election process more transparent and fair. What do you think?
January 29th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
I think it’s a great idea. With a large enough pool the workers wouldn’t have to serve all day so that fresh energetic helpers would be more readily available. I have attempted to volunteer for jury duty but have only been called once in the last 25 years since I retired from the USN and not used during that call-up. As citizens we should be much more active in the voting and judicial process.
January 29th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Better idea is to allow folks to work half days. Those who can work 12 hour shifts are tough to come by. And when the early voting is two weeks, (and there is a bill in this General Assembly to expand that) along with the actual voting day that a lot of shifts to cover with that limited worker pool.
January 30th, 2007 at 9:03 am
The best idea I’ve heard is to not allow the election officials to work the same site consecutively. Anybody that has ever been an observer has seen first-hand the CRIMINAL behavior that is accepted because ‘we’ve always had that happen here at this site,’ or ‘we’ve done it that way for years.’ Just imagine what would happen if the officials from J.C.Napier and Harpeth Valley Elementary had to swap!
January 30th, 2007 at 9:57 am
I don’t know if Alabama still uses the jury duty list but they had a modified system in 1964 that worked well. Their equivalent of our officer of election was an experienced poll worker. It would be a great help in this county to do that.
Stan
January 30th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
I think it’s a good idea. I was a machine operator in last year’s primary (the last one in Nashville with the old machines), and in the November election (the one where everyone had to wait so long; at Christ the King, people stood in line an average of 45 minutes to an hour). Both times, I worked from 6 am till around 9 pm. In November, the only break I got was a quick 15 minute trip home for lunch. They were so short handed that a friend of mine was able to volunteer the week before the election (after all the training classes were over) and work.
Glen