POLL WORKER RECRUITMENT

What started as a prototype in 2016 by Fair Elections Center was officially launched in 2018 as a new project to promote the important role of poll workers through piloting WorkElections.org, a unique web portal designed to centralize and simplify information on poll worker requirements and links to local jurisdictions’ applications. The endeavor was launched in nine states to help find poll workers who were young, bilingual, and tech-savvy.

Our work is an effort to create a more diverse pool of poll workers so they more closely reflect the communities of voters they help. Leading into 2020, we expanded WorkElections.org nationally, to include comprehensive information on poll worker requirements -- including voter registration and training requirements, hours, pay rates, and links to applications -- for thousands of jurisdictions across the country. WorkElections is the first portal to compile all this information in simplified form and in one place.

New Report

Poll Worker Recruitment: Recommendations for a Better Voter Experience

This 2023 report outlines recommendations focused on strengthening and streamlining poll worker recruitment to better meet the needs of election administrators and create larger, more diverse pools of prospective poll workers ahead of the 2024 election. These include:

Launching Online Poll Worker Applications
Allowing College Students to Serve in Jurisdictions Where They Study
Implementing Flexible Residency Requirements
Creating Opportunities for Unaffiliated Voters to Serve

There are no “off years” when it comes to election preparation. Recruiting and training skilled poll workers is a year-round effort and vital to improving election administration nationwide. Even in non-federal election cycles, poll workers are essential to our democracy and ensure the strength and integrity of the voting process.

Read the full report to learn more.

For the 2020 general election, Fair Elections Center partnered with businesses, coalitions, and online companies promoting increased civic engagement among their employees and customers -- including The Civic Alliance, Time to Vote, Comedy Central, Levi Strauss & Co., MTV, Patagonia, Pizza to the Polls, and We Can Vote -- to expand our recruitment efforts with a major new initiative called Power the Polls. The initiative and our partnership has continued on every election since.

We’ve saw the effect the COVID-19 pandemic had on primary elections, with thousands of mostly older poll workers deciding to stay home to protect their health. Many polling locations were shuttered as a result, contributing to long lines at the few remaining voting sites. If nothing was done, the same crisis was expected to impact the elections in the fall.

To help remedy this, we and our Power the Polls partners committed to recruiting 250,000 people to step up and serve as poll workers.

Efforts included an improved website -- powered by WorkElections -- as well as a host of other outreach and support activities, including:

Connecting people and poll working: PowerThePolls.org directed visitors to sign up to be poll workers in their election jurisdictions, while retaining the information of those who expressed interest in serving for follow-up communications.
An effective follow-up strategy: To remind potential poll workers of their commitment to help the election go smoothly and to direct them to local jurisdiction information from WorkElections.
Information to help recruit new poll workers: Created materials to explain what is involved in being a poll worker and sharing some testimonials.
Partnering with the business community: We worked with businesses to help recruit their employees to work at the polls—either by encouraging businesses to give employees Election Day off as a day of service or provide gift packages (merchandise, gift cards, etc.) as a “thank you” to those who serve.
Getting the word out: We reached out to nonprofit allies that could spread the word to their members, with a particular focus on recruiting younger and more diverse workers and promoting the need for bi-lingual speakers in areas with large numbers of language minority voters.
Helping keep poll workers and voters safe and informed: We provided up-to-date information from states on their efforts to keep voters and poll workers safe at the polls and referred potential poll workers to the latest CDC guidelines.