Last Thursday, U.S. election officials trained the next
generation of poll workers for today’s presidential
election.
More than 100 people, both old and young, but most of whom were
in their teens, filled the cafeteria of a middle school in East Los
Angeles in order to learn how to issue and collect ballots. They
were mostly recruited by the “Girls Today Women
Tomorrow” program and the Los Angeles Conservation Group.
Even as they were given a pep talk and dry run of the election
day, many of the students talked amongst themselves. The trainers
tried to appeal to the young crowd by using slang and giving away
prizes for active involvement in the event and for correctly
answering questions.
Many of the trainees were high school students and, ironically,
too young to vote.
While there is a large number of students working the polls,
their participation is still low compared to other age groups.
According to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County
Clerk office, there are 4 million registered voters in Los Angeles
County, and over 2 million are expected to vote. Over 4,600 polling
stations have been set up all over the county and around 23,000
poll workers have been hired for today’s election.
Poll workers across the county are comprised of over 3,000
college students, 4,000 high school students, 4,000 county
employees and over 12,000 senior citizens. Similar to L.A. County,
a large proportion of poll workers across the country are senior
citizens.
“The average age of the poll worker in America is about 72
years old,” said Gracia Hillman, vice chair of the U.S.
Election Commission.
This high average has resulted in the creation of programs that
encourage students to become poll workers.
“It’s a fun thing. They get extra credit in school;
(they get) paid, and many learn something cool,” said Katie
Mac, the student program coordinator for the county registrar. The
program has successfully tripled student poll workers since its
high school program establishment in 1998 and later its college
program in 2002.
For some students, this will not be their first experience
working at the polls.
Henning Roedel, a first-year civil engineering student, will be
a student poll worker for the second time. He previously worked
during the March 2 primary election in his home town of Sebastopol.
As a poll worker, “I learned how to vote and learned about
the voting process as a whole,” he said. Roedel added that
being with other poll workers all day allows him and others to make
new friends and receive encouragement from older people to continue
the work.
“We really want poll workers to look like the United
States of America,” Hillman said. “I think it’s
really important for young people to look up and see somebody their
age working the polls, taking an active interest in elections, and
it will hopefully get them to stop and think about the importance
of voting in the United States.”