There are several advantages to recruiting high school students to join the ranks of existing poll workers, many of whom are retirees.
1. Young poll workers understand computers and technology. Growing up with computers at school, cell phones, and the like, younger poll workers are flexible learners.
2. In cities with multiple language groups, young people are often bilingual. In Boston and Chelsea on Election Day, I watched young poll workers translate between older poll wardens who spoke only English and voters who spoke mostly Spanish and had only limited English skills.
3. The small stipend paid to poll workers — often around $100 for the day — is very significant to 16 or 17 year olds.
4. Young poll workers become turned on to participating as voters for the long haul. This real world work compliments whatever civics they learn in school.
5. Town and city clerks often have a hard time recruiting qualified poll workers, given the small amount of money provided. This would make it easier to recruit all they need, fill the slots with young people who actually were excited about the work, and pair them up with experienced head poll wardens.
6. With sufficient numbers of poll workers finally available, we could investigate breaking poll workers’ days into shorter shifts, giving them a break (they currently work a 14 hour day), or bringing extra workers for a 3pm to 9pm shift to handle the evening rush and clean up.
Note: The program has already begun to be implemented with huge success. But it could really grow if the new administration helped out.
How would it work?
Young student leaders are recommended by their teachers and given the day off school to work at the polls. They also participate in poll worker trainings, which usually occur a few weeks before the election for a few hours.
It would not be too difficult to recruit 1 to 3 young poll workers each to help at all of our state’s 2,166 precincts, especially if it was considered a honor (which it should be). Some thought should be put into branding the program statewide to help attract, recognize, publicize, and thank the great students, teachers, and town clerks involved.
Teachers can also ask students to report back to their classes about their experiences.
THE polling place for all four precincts in Holliston is the High School gym!
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Under the circumstances, I suspect that there would be NO problem getting a bunch of the seniors to show up — especially if you toss $100 at each of them.
I’ve never worked the polls before, but I have stood outside with a sign for 14 hours and I have polled checked. I cant think of a more boring way to spend 14 hours. If anything I think after spending a day doing this they would be less inclined to ever show up at the polls again, even if it were to vote.
they don’t need to stand there or work for 14 hours to get a taste of the process. I should think 4 hrs, half a school day, would do the trick. Maybe even 2 hrs.
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It would also be nice to set up parallel faux voting for the classes who participate, so they can see how their opinions stack up against those of the greater community, and talk about why.
this year for high school students in the political club. There were four components to the day: 1) time spent with the town clerk as she described everything that she has to do to set up for an election and get people through the voting process, 2) a trip to coordinated campaign headquarters to see what goes on from a campaign’s perspective on election day itself, 3) a trip over to a GOTV effort where the kids made 537 GOTV calls in 2.5 hours on 8 phones, and 4) trip back to the polling location to help people check in, figure out their precincts, etc.
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This was the first time such a days has been planned in my school, and I have to say it was such a fun and instructive for all the kids. They rolled up their sleeves and got involved. Good stuff, that.
that souns awesome, lightiris! i hope others will learn from your experience and replicate it.
Unless it was a non-partisan League of Women Voters operation, you were abusing your position as an educator, if you had kids make calls for EITHER party.
about leaving the polls? Do the other pollworkers work the full day? If so, I would think the kids would have to do it, too. However, that’s not the worst thing in the world–after all, it’s only one day. To a 16 year old, it might be a lot more interesting than to an adult. There is a program here in Pinellas county, FL for high school students to be pollworkers–I recall our SOE’s newsletter had a writeup about one a year ago. Of course it’s a little different here, we have those awful DRE touchscreens, and there’s never an hour goes by (so long as there are voters around) that there isn’t something for the machine manager to do (re-calibrating the touchscreens, etc.)
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I think you (and the person you reponded to) are not giving kids enough credit for having the ability to deal with “boredom.” At any rate, this would be only for volunteers–I think the students who were interested in such a program, being self-selected, are less likely to be “bored.”
But I would not want too many kids at one polling station. The kids would certainly be a great help, but they would also need supervision, so it would probably be best not to have more than two per polling place. One thing I don’t know is how many pollworkers you normally have up there…I’ve been a pollworker here for the last six years (except 2004) and have only worked with the punch cards and touch screens, not the optical-scan ballots…