Poll Workers Research Articles

Volunteers, Civil Servants, and Street-Level Bureaucrats: What Motivates Poll Workers to Serve on the Front-Lines of Elections?

As election officials have come under increased scrutiny in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, research considering poll workers’ motivations offers a window into the human dimension of election administration. As public employees that work infrequently, poll workers perform their roles as government agents a few times a year (at most) for long hours and very low pay. Drawing upon original survey data collected from more than 1,000 poll workers in four Arizona counties between April and May, 2019, this study utilizes public service motivation (PSM) as a theoretical framework to explore whether and to what extent election workers express PSM. Ultimately, concepts of civic duty, social engagement, compensation, and social desirability are uncovered as factors motivating front-line election workers. The findings offer actionable insight on how workers can be better recruited to implement U.S. elections.

A Real Evidence of Community: Poll Worker Portraits in the North Carolina Piedmont

Abstract: Georgia poll workers came under fire for alleged election fraud in the 2020 presidential election, but the accusations stood in stark contrast to the author's own experiences as a poll worker in North Carolina during the same election. The author, a photographer, visited a few precincts in central North Carolina to ask volunteers why they became poll workers and to discuss their duty to ensure all voters who showed up were able to cast a ballot and have it counted. Some poll workers talked about voting rights; many described their own voting history and the changes they've witnessed. Others talked about misinformation and the news media. All mentioned integrity, asking themselves: As a citizen and as a poll worker, what can I do to help ensure that each person in my community has the opportunity to vote on Election Day and have that vote counted?

Race and democratic decline in the United States: How minority population growth affects election administration

AbstractObjectivesWe ask whether counties with growing black and Latino populations have reduced the number of poll workers and polling sites. We argue that the association between changing racial demographics and election infrastructure has been exacerbated by the release of certain jurisdictions from the Voting Rights Act's (VRA) “preclearance” requirement under Section 5.MethodsRelying on data from the 2016 and 2018 Election Administration and Voting Survey and demographic data from the American Community Survey, we conduct a multilevel linear regression on a sample of roughly 4000 counties.ResultsWe find that counties respond to changes in the Latino population, though not changes in the black population, by reducing access to election resources. This relationship is especially pronounced in areas formerly covered by Section 5 of the VRA.ConclusionsGiven the importance of polling places and workers for in‐person voting, our findings raise serious concerns for racial equality in election access and influence.

Poll Workers in Sweden: Characteristics, Training, and Performance

Poll Workers in Sweden: Characteristics, Training, and Performance

An Agent-Based Simulation Platform for a Safe Election: From Design to Simulation

Managing the logistics and safety of an election system, from delivering voting machines to the right locations at the right time to ensuring that voting lines remain reasonable in length is a complex problem due to the scarcity of resources, especially human poll workers, and the impact of human behavior and disrupting events on the performance of this critical system. These complexities grew with the need for physical distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic coinciding with multiple key national elections, including the 2020 general presidential election in the USA. In this paper, we propose a digital clone platform leveraging agent-based simulation to model and experiment with resource allocation decisions and voter turnout fluctuations and facilitate “what-if” scenario testing of any election. As a use case, we consider three different concurrent polling location problems, namely, resource allocation, polling layout, and management. The main aim is to reduce voter waiting time and provide visibility of different scenarios for polling and state-level managers. We explain the proposed simulation platform based on Fulton County for the 2020 presidential US election. Fulton County had 238 polling locations in 2020, which provided publicly available voter turnout data. The developed platform realistically models at the county level and at specific locations, suggesting the possible allocation of finite resources among locations in the county and the configuration of each location, accounting for physical, legal, and technical constraints. Multiple realistic scenarios were developed and embedded into the simulation platform to evaluate and verify the different systems. The system performance and key attributes of the election system, such as waiting time, resource utilization, and layout safety, were tested and validated.

The Fair Fight to Dismantle Voter Suppression: Recognizing Electoral Injustice Through Lived Experiences

Using narrative inquiry to analyze the Fair Fight website, this article illuminates how localized lived experience becomes an important tool to fight electoral injustice. The author provides an assemblage of narratives from disenfranchised voters to argue that although election technologies and processes (e.g., address systems, voter registration, absentee or mail-in ballots, voter queues), poll workers, and officials may seem neutral or apolitical, they can potentially be tools of disenfranchisement.

On the frontline of democracy: poll workers’ evaluations of elections

In democracies, elections in which voters elect their leaders and hold them accountable are the most important part of the democratic process. This study is about the people who work on the frontline of democracy and who play a major role in elections, namely poll workers. Surprisingly little is known about how poll workers evaluate elections, and we provide a detailed analysis of poll workers' views of how elections work in Sweden. We do this by reporting and analysing the results from a survey conducted among poll workers in Sweden shortly after the 2022 election. The results show that although many types of polling station-related problems were rare, some problems occurred to a greater extent than we expected. It is also clear that many of the problems had a negative impact on the poll workers' evaluations of the quality of the voting process.

Getting A Seat At The (Electoral) Table: Partisan Poll Workers and Electoral Bias

Getting A Seat At The (Electoral) Table: Partisan Poll Workers and Electoral Bias

Don't Dismiss Digital Immigrants: Poll Workers and New Election Technologies

Don't Dismiss Digital Immigrants: Poll Workers and New Election Technologies

Proper Protective (Voting) Equipment: How Covid-19 Safety Measures Shaped In-Person Voting Experiences During the 2020 Election

Leading up to the 2020 election, many Americans were worried about casting a ballot in-person due to the Covid-19 pandemic and supported measures to protect voters at the voting booths. Addressing these concerns, election administrators enacted multiple Covid safety measures (e.g., routinely cleaning voting booths, wearing face masks, and providing single use ballot pens). Given voters’ health concerns related to the pandemic and support for safety measures at the ballot box, the presence of Covid safety protocols may increase how safe voters feel voting in-person and evaluations of their voting experience. Using the 2020 Survey of the Performance of American Elections, this study finds that the presence of Covid safety measures increased feelings of voting safety, evaluations of poll workers, and the positivity of the voting experience, but typically not polling place evaluations; though, effects differ by Covid safety policy.

A Framework for Blockchain Based E-Voting System for Iraq

Election is a basic democratic tool that offers an official mechanism for the people to express their opinions in order to form a government by democratic means. Electronic voting has evolved into the most significant application of e-governance and e-democracy. Few countries have recently taken the opportunity to test and use electronic voting systems. Also, many countries expect that internet voting will become a reality during the next decade. In the conventional voting system, the electors authenticate themselves by displaying credentials; this move is open to the public and is validated by poll workers. During this authentication, they are manually checked before being eligible to vote. The standard system of voting is more costly and needs more human capital. Because of these factors, the whole world is heading toward the trend of e-voting. Electronic voting devices are supposed to be the answer to the shortages. A secure e-voting system must meet many criteria, including uniqueness, performance, fairness, stability, safety, authentication, and anonymity. Blockchain is a modern security solution, which is capable of securing e-voting system. Blockchain is distributed ledger. Each block contains only one transaction. Block chain provides security using cryptography and hashing. Blockchain provides a perfect infrastructure to provide secure e-voting netwms.ork. Blockchain along with smart contracts need hour to improvise an e-voting system. This paper presents a secure blockchain based framework for an e-electronic voting in Iraq.

Participation in the administration of elections and perceptions of electoral integrity

In recent years, election administration has become a subject of intensified debates, raising questions of how to organize elections to ensure electoral integrity. One question concerns who should serve as members of polling station boards, administer election day proceedings, and participate in the vote count. Different models co-exist in modern democracies, with some countries – among them Austria – actively involving the political parties in the election administration. Against this background, this paper examines perceptions of electoral integrity among Austrian poll workers and citizens using data from an original survey of poll workers and survey data of the voting population. The results show that poll workers have greater confidence in the election administration than regular voters but are equally or more skeptical regarding other aspects of electoral integrity. Also, their partisan background shapes perceptions of electoral integrity. To conclude, we discuss the benefits and limitations of the ‘party model’ for poll worker recruitment.

Waiting to vote safely: How Covid-19 safety measures shaped in-person voter wait times during the 2020 election.

ObjectiveThe aim of this article is to assess the impact of Covid‐19 safety measures on voter wait times during the 2020 U.S. election.MethodsMultinomial logistic regression models predicting voter wait times contingent on the presence of Covid safety measures: poll workers wearing face coverings, protective barriers separating voters and workers, voters and booths socially distanced, hand sanitizer, single‐use ballot marking pens, and cleaning voting booths between voters, as well as an additive index of these measures.ResultsFindings suggest Covid‐safety measures significantly affected voter wait times. Effects vary by Covid safety feature, with face coverings, barriers, social distancing, and cleaning booths increasing voter wait times (typically around 10–30 min), single‐use pens decreasing voter wait times, and hand sanitizer having no effect. Results are further confirmed using an additive index.ConclusionCovid safety features likely increased voter wait times during the 2020 U.S. election, potentially accounting for a portion of the increased voter wait time, compared to previous elections.

Vote Centers and the Voter Experience

The scholarship regarding vote centers primarily focuses on their impact on voter turnout. Though previous literature suggests modest and conditional increases in voter participation, the mechanism by which vote centers increase participation is less understood. One suggested mechanism is that they provide voters a better experience at the polling place. In this article, we investigate whether voters who cast their ballot at vote centers have a better experience than those who vote at traditional precinct polling places. Utilizing a unique dataset collected from exit polls of Election Day voters before and after the implementation of vote centers in Harris County, Texas, we examine if vote centers improved the voters’ experience. Contrary to theoretical expectations, we find that those who voted at a vote center reported having a more negative experience. This negative experience is driven primarily by longer lines and less helpful poll workers.

Electoral administration and the problem of poll worker recruitment: Who volunteers, and why?

Elections depend on the thousands of people who give up their time to administer this crucial public service. They staff polling stations and ensure votes are issued, cast and counted. Poll workers are effectively ‘stipended volunteers’, receiving some limited financial compensation, but working for the broader public good. It is important to understand why people choose to give up their time to provide this fundamental public service to their fellow citizens. Using original data from a poll worker survey conducted in the 2015 British general election, this article investigates the motivations and incentives for poll workers volunteering to administer major elections in an important advanced democracy. Exploratory expectations are set out about the motivations of poll workers, and the relationship to their socio-economic characteristics, and levels of social capital and satisfaction with democracy. Contrary to expectations, the findings note that, earning some extra money is important to many, although motivations are more broadly structured around solidary, purposive and material motivations. The article establishes a range of relationships between each set of incentives, and poll workers’ socio-economic, social capital and satisfaction profiles.

Burning Down the House: COVID‐19 and Institutions

Burning Down the House: COVID‐19 and Institutions

Scientists Are Primed for Poll Positions

Scientists and science communicators can lend their expertise to a growing shortage of poll workers in the United States.

The Miracle and Tragedy of the 2020 Election

The 2020 election was both a miracle and a tragedy. In the midst of a pandemic, election administrators pulled off a safe, secure, and professional election. Still, lies of voter fraud have cemented in the minds of tens of millions of Americans that the election was rigged. As the first wave of the pandemic overtook the nation right as the presidential election season was beginning, most states responded by delaying their primaries and maximizing opportunities to vote by mail. We review how the quick actions of many states led to salvaging of the primary season, but also led to two cautionary tales, from Wisconsin and New York, that illustrated the disasters that could befall both mail and in-person voters if the nation did not act quickly. We recount the combination of actions taken by governors, state legislators, health officials, judges, and civil society to adapt election administration to the exigent realities of the pandemic and to cope with the logistical challenges state and local election officials faced. We discuss metrics of success in the adaptations that took place — record-high turnout, widespread voter satisfaction, a doubling of mail voting without a concomitant increase in problems often associated with absentee ballots, and the recruitment of hundreds of thousands of new poll workers. We also explore how the competing narrative of dysfunction and a “stolen election,” propagated by President Trump and his supporters, led not only to the insurrection at the Capitol on January 1, but also to a historically deep chasm at the mass level between partisans in their trust of the election process and outcome. We conclude by noting that many states will be considering legislation that re-litigates the election by addressing non-problems, rather than building on the triumphs of the election.

Adoption of Strategies to Mitigate Transmission of COVID-19 During a Statewide Primary Election - Delaware, September 2020.

Elections occurring during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have been affected by notable changes in the methods of voting, the number and type of polling locations, and in-person voting procedures (1). To mitigate transmission of COVID-19 at polling locations, jurisdictions have adopted changes to protocols and procedures, informed by CDC's interim guidance, developed in collaboration with the Election Assistance Commission (2). The driving principle for this guidance is that voting practices with lower infection risk will be those which reduce the number of voters who congregate indoors in polling locations by offering a variety of methods for voting and longer voting periods. The guidance for in-person voting includes considerations for election officials, poll workers, and voters to maintain healthy environments and operations. To assess knowledge and adoption of mitigation strategies, CDC collaborated with the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services and the Delaware State Election Commission on a survey of poll workers who served during the statewide primary election on September 15, 2020. Among 522 eligible poll workers, 93% correctly answered all three survey questions about COVID-19 transmission. Respondents noted that most voters and poll workers wore masks. However, masks were not always worn correctly (i.e., covering both the nose and mouth). Responses suggest that mitigation measures recommended for both poll workers and voters were widely adopted and feasible, but also highlighted gaps in infection prevention control efforts. Strengthening of measures intended to minimize the risk of poll workers acquiring COVID-19 from ill voters, such as additional training and necessary personal protective equipment (PPE), as well as support for alternative voting options for ill voters, are needed. Adherence to mitigation measures is important not only to protect voters but also to protect poll workers, many of whom are older adults, and thus at higher risk for severe COVID-19-associated illness. Enhanced attention to reducing congregation in polling locations, correct mask use, and providing safe voting options for ill voters are critical considerations to minimize risk to voters and poll workers. Evidence from the Delaware election supports the feasibility and acceptability of implementing current CDC guidance for election officials, poll workers, and voters for mitigating COVID-19 transmission at polling locations (2).

Democracy on a Shoestring

Democracy requires money. Voters must be registered, voting rolls updated, election dates advertised, voting technology purchased and tested, poll workers trained, ballots designed, votes counted and verified, and on and on. Despite the importance of election expenditures, we have a shamefully inadequate amount of information about how much our elections cost. This Article, based on a novel and painstakingly hand-coded dataset, provides much needed information on election expenditures across multiple years from four states: California, Arizona, Texas, and Florida. These states, given their unique characteristics, provide a compelling sample set. In what we believe to be a completely novel approach to the collection of election expenditure data, we supplement our hand-coded data with predictive machine learning. This allows us to estimate average annual election spending across multiple government units. Our findings, unsurprisingly, reveal great variation both across and within states. But our findings also reveal that much of the variation is seemingly unconnected to poverty, race, and other traditional explanations of electoral disadvantage. This brings into question many basic assumptions legislators, courts, and scholars harbor about election expenditures. Our findings implicate not only policy discussions about election funding but also the limitations of doctrinal interventions and judicial remedies that are divorced from issues of resource allocation. The Article proceeds in five parts: Part I provides background on election funding, including a discussion of election costs and what the most common funding sources are. This Part also discusses election law doctrines and how they do not directly consider election expenditures. Part II outlines our data and methods. Part III presents our main findings. Part IV responds to the findings and explores potential doctrines under which election expenditures might be considered. Part V weighs the pros and cons of several non-doctrinal proposals for election administration reform.