When things go awry at the voting booth, as they have several times this primary season, much of the blame often falls on ill-trained poll workers who are paid a pittance.
And there have been some head-scratching moments: While folks in Washington were waiting hours to vote under record turnout Feb. 12, poll workers hid electronic voting machines because they didn’t like the touch-screen devices. On Super Tuesday in Chicago, poll workers passed out pens meant for e-voting machines. When those instruments made no mark on paper ballots, election workers said they were full of invisible ink — an explanation that was upheld by on-site precinct judges.
While some of these snafus defy logic, many can be pinned on poor training, experts say.
“We’re running the most important part of our democracy on the backs of untrained, poorly paid volunteers,” said Lloyd Leonard, who has helped research poll-worker issues for the League of Women Voters. “It’s not their fault. Funding is not a priority. They aren’t paid much. They try real hard. We should all volunteer and help them out.”
There are an estimated 2 million poll workers, the largest one-day workforce in the country, according to research published in September by , a project of the Pew Center on the States.
Many have only a few hours of training and earn an average of $100 for working up to 16 hours on Election Day — or 40 cents more an hour than the federal minimum wage, the survey said.
There are no national standards for training poll workers, and compensation is determined by states and local election boards, ranging from a low of zero in Vermont to a high of $325 in some New York jurisdictions. “Low pay, absenteeism and morale continue to be challenges,” the study said.
Added disincentives include serving a public whose members can turn cranky and impatient when kept waiting — and right now it’s all about waiting — while laboring under a preconception that the workforce is a bunch of gray-haired technophobes.
In an intensely competitive primary season with record turnout and an ever-changing landscape of election rules, being a poll worker has rarely been more difficult.
Lots of work, lots of rules
In California, some poll workers mistakenly asked voters to show their driver’s licenses before they could have a ballot and incorrectly told registered independents they could not vote for a Democratic candidate. Super Tuesday ballots are still being counted in some counties after an avalanche of mail-in and provisional ballots that have some officials ironing bent or folded cards so they can fit into optical scanning machines.
Electronic voting machines, which many states have welcomed and spent millions on, have worsened the burden on poll workers, whose average age is 72.
Then problems arose with elderly poll workers who had difficulty operating the units. Problems also occurred with the machines themselves, which malfunctioned, switched votes and mysteriously shut down in cases reported across the country.
Ohio has its share of poll-worker problems that have little to do with the ballot format. In 2006, nearly 20 percent of election volunteers didn’t show up in Cuyahoga County, for instance. But a peer review panel also cited poorly trained poll workers and insufficient numbers.
Election officials responded by spending more money on training and by recruiting volunteers from high schools and colleges.
Pairing young people with elderly poll workers has been implemented in several states, along with corporate and government programs allowing employees to be poll workers without losing pay.
Dan Seligson, an editor at , has been a poll worker for three elections in the District of Columbia. He received about two hours of training, he said, which seemed adequate. But older poll workers, faced with a combination of paper ballots and electronic machines, were skeptical of the latter, he said.
“They’re human beings. It’s a grueling day,” Seligson said. “People can just get on your nerves.”
