Election officials struggle to recruit poll workers for midterms amid growing threats

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• Judy Woodruff:

  Election Day 2022 is less than two months away, and yet there is a critical missing element that could slow down the voting process.

  William Brangham is back with a conversation he had recently about the difficulties in recruiting poll workers.

• William Brangham:

  It takes more than a million people working the polls to make elections run smoothly in America. The majority of them are over 60 years old.

  Between retirements and concerns about COVID, tens of thousands of poll workers have left the job over the past several election cycles.

  We talked to some election workers about the process.

• Anjali Gokarn, Georgia Poll Worker:

  My name is Anjali Gokarn.

  I started working in the elections in 2020.

• Joe Plenzler, Maryland Election Ballot Judge:

  My name is Joe Plenzler. And I am a election ballot judge here in Charles County, Maryland.

  Nour Alamiri, Chief Officer of Election, Virginia: My name is Nour Alamiri.

• Sylvia Brodie, Georgia Poll Manager:

  My name is Sylvia Brodie, and I am from Cartersville, Georgia.

• Barb Byrum, Ingham County, Michigan, Clerk:

  My name is Barb Byrum. I am the Ingham County Clerk in the great state of Michigan.

  If we are unable to hire a sufficient number of precinct workers, that's going to slow down the process. That could cause lines at the polling location. And it could cause a significant delay in the release of unofficial results on election night.

• Sylvia Brodie:

  2020, of course, as far as staffing goes, it was scary. Some people dropped off, fear of COVID.

• Nour Alamiri:

  Because of safety concerns, we haven't had as many volunteers as we previously have had.

• Joe Plenzler:

  The volunteers were an array of Republicans, Democrats and independents all coming together to really make democracy happen for our fellow citizens and to help all our fellow Republican, Democrat and independent voters come in to the polling station and exercise their right to vote.

• Anjali Gokarn:

  We're a democracy. And part of a democracy is having an ability for everybody to vote.

  I'm just really trying to help be able to get the whole state to vote. It's not like one party or another.

• Nour Alamiri:

  I also wanted to be sure that there was diverse representation in our poll workers. As an Arab Muslim woman, it was important for me to be one of the election officers available and working at the poll places so that, when voters came to their precincts, they could see somebody who looked like them.

• Joe Plenzler:

  Running a polling station isn't that hard. It's just you got to really know the rules and regulations and follow them closely.

  We spent about four hours at our county board of election on a Friday afternoon learning how to set up, run and take down a polling station, pack it away, and then report the results to the county.

  I'm a natural skeptic by nature. And going through that training really impressed me and left me confident in the way our elections are run down here.

• Barb Byrum:

  I do believe the reason we have seen some precincts leave is because of the negativity that they have felt, whether at the polling location, when they were serving their community in the middle of a pandemic, or just going to the grocery store and seeing their neighbor with a shirt that says the election was rigged or that Trump won.

  That takes a toll on humans.

• Sylvia Brodie:

  I wish that people could, just one time in their life, do what we do, understand the process, and you will find out that there's absolutely no way that somebody could actually cheat.

• Anjali Gokarn:

  I'm not as concerned about the election deniers. What I'm a little bit more concerned about is just making sure that, when places are staffed, there's, like, competent people and people that will handle voters with care, that will show them the respect they deserve, regardless of what way they lean.

  And I just want people to know that voting does matter. Voting makes an impact.

• Sylvia Brodie:

  I don't have plans of stopping. Why quit now?

  (LAUGHTER)

• Sylvia Brodie:

  I have been there when it was easy, when everybody was happy, and everybody's just coming in excited to vote. I have been there when it was hard, and you hear the comments. And I have even been called a few names.

  And — but that's not why I'm there.

• Nour Alamiri:

  I have enjoyed working at the precinct. And I see a lot of the same voters election after election. And they look forward to seeing me. So I feel like we have really built a community in the election space, and I don't want to let my voters down.

• William Brangham:

  So those are just some of the people who will be working the polls this November. And with over 5,000 local election jurisdictions across the U.S., recruiting new workers can be a challenge.

  One organization called Power the Polls launched two years ago in response to the pandemic, and has since helped sign up more than 700,000 new election workers.

  Jane Slusser is the program manager of Power the Polls. And she joins me now.

  Jane, thank you so much for being here.

  We heard some of the challenges from those elections workers about doing their jobs and recruiting new people. Can you talk a little bit more about the challenges you face doing what you do?

  Jane Slusser, Power the Polls: You know, one of the biggest challenges around poll worker recruitment is that people don't know that they're needed.

  People don't know this is a role that they can step up and fill. They don't know how to find the opportunity. But, once they do, they just say that it's one of the most rewarding things that they have ever done. So, it's really just an issue of awareness. And that's why Power the Polls exists.

  That's why we're here spreading the word about this, allowing people to sign up. And people are answering that call. We have actually had over 125,000 people sign up with us just this year since we relaunched our program. So people are really excited about being able to serve again. They just need to know that there's an opportunity, and we're here to help them find that through our Web site.

• William Brangham:

  Can you give us a sense of, what does that recruitment effort look like?

  I mean, you're not offering six-figure salaries or sterling benefits. What's the pitch? And what does that look like?

• Jane Slusser:

  First of all, it's raising awareness. It is also letting people know that they do get paid. You might not get a six-figure salary, but people are really excited to learn that they might earn a couple hundred bucks by doing this.

  I'm here in Philadelphia, where they actually just doubled the pay for election workers to — in order to get more folks through the door. Part of it is reaching out through community organizations. Folks really answer that call when it's through a group that they are used to working with that they know helps neighbors in their community anyway.

  Part of it is being here with you now and letting people know through the news. We have had lots of wonderful celebrities talking about this to really get the word out to a younger group of people that might not be aware of this and letting them know that they can come to Power the Polls. Our Web site is very easy. You sign up, you put in your zip code, and, instead of having to find that local application through a long Web of the Internet, you're able to just put that in, and we direct you to your local elections administrator, so that you can sign up with them directly.

  And then we just remind you along the process, did you fill out that application, did you get it in, and make sure that you actually show up, because we don't want anybody flaking on Election Day.

• William Brangham:

  We heard from some of those voices a concern that the intensely partisan nature of the last election and all the accusations, that somehow the process was rigged, that the election was stolen, that that might turn people off from the process.

  How do you counter that?

• Jane Slusser:

  That's definitely the intention of those types of activities and that type — those types of attack.

  One thing that we found, though, is that people are really motivated to show up because they want to sort of make sure that everybody feels good about their elections in their neighborhood.

  So we have folks that sign up that say, look, I really don't care who wins the election. I don't care who you vote for. I know people are going to come in who may have different views than me. I don't care. I just want to make sure that everybody has access to the ballot. I want to make sure that everybody in my neighborhood and my community is able to vote.

  And this is also one of the important things that we always remind people. When you go into that polling location, everyone who's a poll worker there is from your neighborhood. They're from your community. You have to live in the city and the county and sometimes even in the exact neighborhood where you serve as a poll worker in many places across the country, which means you're probably recognizing somebody that you see on the street or at the grocery store who's actually there checking you in, helping you vote, giving you that "I Voted" sticker.

• William Brangham:

  One other conversation that has come up is partisan actors encouraging other partisans to apply for these jobs, to be in those positions, and the fear being that they might not adhere to all the rules, that they might be doing things that are not part of the normal process.

  How do you — how do we, as a society, protect against that?

• Jane Slusser:

  Well, number one, I think the most important thing is making sure election administrators have a very ample pool of poll worker applications to pull from, who are in trainings, and they identify somebody who seems to be there for the wrong reasons, that they can sort of move ahead with the other folks who clearly have a non — no partisan intentions in their activities there.

  Right now, we have been so focused on recruitment and applications and getting folks in the door just for these initial placements. But as we get closer to Election Day, we also know that administrators, they have a backup list so that, if somebody doesn't show up or the wrong person emerges, and they have to be removed, that a new person is just a phone call away to come in and make sure that voting continues smoothly and seamlessly for all the voters in that location.

• William Brangham:

  All right, Jane Slusser, Power the Polls, thank you so much for being here.

  And good luck with your work.

• Jane Slusser:

  Thank you.