Glenside resident Beth Rooney volunteers to work at the polls.
Although she ran for judge of elections and didn’t make it, the person who won resigned, so Montgomery County has called her repeatedly to fill in. She’s worked in most elections for the last five or six years.
“There’s a shortage,” said Rooney. “They’re always trying to scare up people.”
“The judge of elections is basically the head honcho at the polls,” she said. They “make sure things are going correctly, that people aren’t cheating, and questions are answered in a positive way.”
For example, one voter made it to the polls just before closing at 8 p.m. But it turned out he’d come to the wrong location, and Rooney knew that if he tried to get to the correct poll, he wouldn’t make it. So, she offered him a provisional ballot so his vote could be counted.
“You try to do whatever you can do so a person can vote,” said Rooney.
Another polling place was at a school where there was no entrance for disabled people, she said.
“We opened the door of an office and put these people in a desk chair on wheels and rolled them down to the poll,” said Rooney. “It was certainly not standard, but it worked.”
Poll workers need to be patient with disgruntled voters.
“I had one person get upset because it was the primary and she wanted to vote for Trump, but she was a registered Democrat,” Rooney said. “‘Where’s Trump on here? I want to vote for him,’ The voter said, about the Democratic ballot.”
Rooney explained that voters have to vote within the party they’re registered with during a primary.
“She was kind of huffy about that,” said Rooney.
Working at the polls is a long day from 6 a.m. to get things ready until 9 p.m. or later to get all the votes counted and the tallies reconciled. But poll workers are paid for their time. They also attend training sessions beforehand, so they know what to do.
The Democracy Defense Project Pennsylvania board urges voters to volunteer to fill poll worker vacancies throughout the commonwealth to ensure smooth elections.
Board Member former Gov. Ed Rendell (D) told DV Journal that part of the problem with recruiting volunteers is how divided people are these days.
“Politics has become so rancorous in the last few elections,” said Rendell. “There’s so much rancor between sides, and people make charges and countercharges.”
It’s important to have neutral poll workers “to calm things down.”
While lines are shorter due to mail-in ballots, he said it’s still important to move things along.
Another board member, former Congressman Jim Gerlach (R-Chester/Montgomery) said, “In the last election cycle, it was very difficult for county election offices to find enough volunteers just because of the amount of work involved.”
Asked if the poll workers’ shifts could be split, he said that was “not a bad idea.”
“It might end up getting you more volunteers, because rather than working 15 or 16 hours a day, if you only had to work maybe seven hours, and could still spend time with your family,” said Gerlach.
Gerlach said he’s never volunteered since he was a candidate for various offices and thought people would not think of him as nonpartisan. But now that he’s been out of office for 10 years, he might do it.
He said this year is a good year to volunteer because it’s not a presidential year, and turnout will be lighter. Volunteers can “get that experience, so by the next presidential election cycle in 2028, there’ll be folks who are a little more experienced, a little more seasoned and are used to working in the polls. So, this might be a good year to start building back that volunteer base.”
Judges of elections and inspectors of elections are essential, said Rendell.
“These nearly 27,000 election day positions are essential to ensuring a smooth election day with involvement in verifying voting integrity and securing ballots,” said board member Melissa Hart, a former Republican congresswoman whose district encompassed parts of six counties in western Pennsylvania.
Judges of Election supervise their voting precinct and safely deliver ballots and election results to the county at the end of the evening. Inspectors verify voter registration, sign in voters, and uphold election integrity at each voting precinct.
Although the petition filing period for these positions has passed, voters can still run write-in campaigns for the May 20 primary. Anyone interested in filling these crucial positions should ask their friends, family, and neighbors within their specific precinct to write their name on their May 20 primary ballot for the position they seek.
“This is a unique opportunity to serve their community and play a vital role in our democracy,” said Gerlach.
While election day volunteers are an important part of the voting process, the board members of the Democracy Defense Project in Pennsylvania encourage the members of the state legislature to explore additional election reforms. Improvements for discussion should include pre-canvassing, voter ID, and election uniformity to strengthen the election system.
Act 77 of 2019, which allowed no-excuse mail-in voting, had several unclear guidelines and failed to set uniform rules across all 67 counties. Because of this, some counties faced lawsuits due to inconsistent enforcement, the group said.
To protect the counties in future elections and to ensure consistency, uniformity in our elections must be a top priority for the state legislature, they said. The group recommends that the state legislature pass laws to fix these problems.
“We all believe in our democracy, and it’s the best democracy in the world,” said Rendell. “It runs on a lot of things, but poll workers are an important part of making it work.”
