I just applied.
Has anyone else volunteered?
There was a thread on this in Nov 2022, but it’s now locked so hopefully this one can stay civil.
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I’m thinking about it still. Just got the invite from the county, general message.
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I’ve been doing it since 2012 and I love it. As one of the few Democrats in my township, I’m always assigned to absentee ballot counting which is fine with me. The year Trump was elected we were at the polls from 6am until 1am the next day. Most elections we are done by 9:30-10. In my state we get paid and fed, so that’s nice too.
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I’ve been doing it since 2010, and I love it too! So fun and fulfilling. AND we get paid pretty well. Do it!!
Edited to add, we get paid for training too, and we get hours of training/refresher courses before every election.
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I’ve done it in the past. I use a special leave category so I get paid, in addition to getting paid by the county. Several local businesses provided coffee, donuts, bagels and butter & cream cheeses. It was nice and while it was a long day it was worth it.
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Myself, DH andy son applied… Never called back.
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I did it when down in San Diego county, for several years. I was part of the electronics team and never worked just one polling place (which looked, to me, like a HUGE day-long grind!!) I was mobile and had 5-10 polling places under my supervision/troubleshooting. Then, later, I supervised the troubleshooting team, and had almost nothing to do.
I enjoyed it, and felt like I was doing some good. In California, in the areas where I’ve lived, there’s been very little nonsense activity at the polls, so we didn’t see the kind of trouble other areas have experienced.
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Ughh, can’t imagine doing that.
In NYC everyone is at the site at 5am for an opening to the public at 6am.
Although electronic transmissions have sped up vote counting, closing the poll site can go to 2 or 3 am. So it’s a 22 hour day.
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Call a different Clerk.
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My first time was 16 hours long. After that, I’ve simply told them I can’t work that long, and I now work from 6am to 2pm with time off to run home at lunch if I need to let the dog out.
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So a bit of a derail – I have a question for those of you trained in areas that use paper ballots that are manually fed into a ballot box (it looks like a large standalone paper shredder to me) –
Do you let voters put their ballots in the box themselves or are you trained to have a volunteer review the ballots and the volunteer is the only one allowed to enter the ballot in the box? And if it is the latter, are you told it’s ok if you hold up the ballot while reviewing both sides so everyone in line can see how the voter voted because, as the volunteer told people at my last election, “no one should be afraid to let anyone know how they voted”?
I personally witnessed people leaving without voting because the latter method was what was used at my new voting location in the last election (mid-terms). I was only ever familiar with the former method and am curious how it is supposed to be done. I will say, I am not a fan of the latter. The crowd in there voting at the time was heavily leaning one side based on attire and loud conversations, I can easily see how someone could have been intimidated.
thanks.
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I would look up your states laws but I know in my state, paper ballots are kept in the folder until the person casting the ballot puts the paper ballot into the reader. There may be a poll worker there to assist but they do not handle the paper ballot after it has been marked by the voter.
I would bet your poll worker was breaking some law.
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In my state the ballot stays with the voter in a secure envelope until the voter feeds it into the machine. The poll worker never touches the ballot.
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I’d be reporting that poll worker on the spot!
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Ok, thanks. I had a feeling it wasn’t right. Previous location used folders as well, no folders this last time. I did ask regarding this volunteer’s actions and was told that’s how it was being done and treated as if I were being difficult. If I were to give them the benefit of the doubt, they were very busy, I think they thought they were speeding things up and maybe thought looking to see that people correctly filled in the circles? I don’t know, even that seems a stretch but it definitely was not speeding anything up, she was taking her time and the whole thing seemed very wrong.
I will definitely look up state laws and take a firmer stand at this next election.
thanks all.
back to original topic, I am considering volunteering this year.
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Great.
BTW, it’s a secret ballot for a reason, to avoid such intimidation.
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If something like this happens again, ask for the precinct captain, call your state party and/or call the secretary of state’s office.
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What the ****?! No way. That is so over the top illegal in my state (even my bassackwards county) that I’m aghast. Definitely complain to an election judge or someone higher in the chain if you see it again.
No one is supposed to know how an individual voted. Only that they are registered and did vote.
Makes me extra-happy that in my household we only vote by mail or ballot drop box. We were given the option to do it that way permanently and grabbed it.
That said, definitely look into being an election worker. The turnout is typically lower for primaries and “off” years but they still need people.
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Where I work, the voters submit the ballot themselves. Each ballot is in a sleeve, the person working the “machine” tears off a numbered tab at the top (the only thing showing), and the voter slides the ballot into the machine. The worker is NEVER allowed to touch the voter’s ballot and is supposed to stand at least 10’ away from the voting machine.
If there is mistake, the machine will ‘spit’ the ballot back out. It may be that someone forgot to vote for someone/something. If they (plural pronoun) want to, they can go back to a voting booth and mark what they missed. If they choose NOT to, they can resubmit the ballot to the machine, and it will accept it the second time, but nothing will be counted for what they didn’t mark, obviously.
If someone voted for, say, two people for the same position, the voting machine will, again, spit it back out. The voter has a choice to go back to the person who gave them (plural pronoun) the ballot. The voter here will write “Spoiled” on the ballot, and it is then put in a special envelope. The assigned number of the ballot will be crossed off and changed both in the electronic book and on the ‘Application to Vote’ slip (which the person working at the voting machine takes).
If a person has marked two people for the same position, say, both Biden and Trump for president, and the voter does NOT want to get a new ballot, they (plural pronoun) can resubmit the ballot into the voting machine, but the machine will NOT count EITHER vote for that office. All other correctly marked choices WILL count.
(A message does appear on the machine screen saying that something was missed or double-voted, making it easier for the voter to find the mistake.)
HERE, you can NOT show NOR declare who you voted for. NO WORKER can look at your ballot NOR tell other voters how you voted. Nor can the voter; if the voter says, “I voted for XXXX!” so others could hear, that voter could LOSE voting privileges altogether. IF a volunteer touched/talked about someone’s ballot HERE, one of us workers would call the City Clerk—she would be at our precinct quicker than quick. If I were somewhere else where a volunteer looked at, talked about, or showed someone’s ballot, I would contact the city clerk, the county voting office, or the police; it IS illegal!
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In Massachusetts, the election workers do. not. touch. a voter’s completed ballot. The voter inserts it into the ballot box. I would imagine poll workers would make an exception for someone who was physically incapable of doing that, but such a person is likely to have someone with them to help them vote.
The general procedure is pretty bombproof. When you check in to get your ballot, you give your name and address to the election worker and they check you off and hand you the appropriate ballot. You vote, go to the ballot box, repeat your name and address to the (different) poll worker there, they check you out, and you insert your ballot. The ballot has an electronic code that allows detection of missing ballots, ballots entered more than once, etc.
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