Long Day for Low Pay at Polls
Elections may be getting more expensive and the voting machines may be getting more complicated, but poll workers are not getting a raise in Clinton County.
County Auditor Sheridan reported to the board of supervisors that the cost of equipment, postage, supplies, and training, were putting a hole in his budget despite the $278,000 he received from the state to pay for the new equipment. So how much is left for the poor poll workers whose day can be 16 hours of uninterrupted vigilance?
Poll workers currently are paid $5.50 per hour, with the chairman at each location receiving $6.25.
The poll workers have asked for a pay raise, Sheridan said, but he told them not this year because of the expense of buying the new voting system. . . .
Well, there’s always next year.
I told them maybe next year we’ll look at it,” he said.
“If we could find the money, I wouldn’t be opposed to paying them a little more,” said [supervisor] Todtz. “They deserve it.”
Election directors often lament the difficulty in finding poll workers. No wonder. They start work before the poll opens at 7 am and stay until after it closes at 9 pm. That is probably 16 hours. They have to know how the equipment works and they may have to manhandle it from the courthouse to the poll, set it up and tear it down and haul it back. They have to know some election law. They are the front lines in provisional ballot skirmishes. They have to balance their books showing the number of voters and the number of ballots.
Some auditors worry that the new equipment is going to scare off many current poll workers. In some circles there is even talk of asking high school students to be poll workers. That may be a lesson in civics worth offering, but it is also a sign of desperation. Poll workers are the guardians of a pure ballot box and that is not a job for the immature.
So let’s invite high school students to be poll worker aides and let’s pay the poll workers like our democracy depended on them.