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“And it’s proven invaluable,” Bucaro said. “She’s helped us build our recruitment numbers earlier and used more innovative ways, new programs.”
There’s been 641 new poll workers signed on for this November’s election, with 48 percent of those being students and parents. Other recruitment avenues include advertising through utility bills, media and a two-week Facebook ad run.
This new way of poll worker recruitment has meant less overtime for the staff and “it also means we have a large pool of people to draw from so we can evaluate them through the training process and make sure we put the best people in the field on election day,” Bucaro said.
But that does come with difficult decisions, she said.
“We sometimes have to tell a poll worker who has worked for many, many years that, if they seem to be struggling, that we might not use them this election,” Bucaro said. “And that can be a letdown for them, and it’s hard for us because they become like family as well as you get to know them.”
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Poll workers are selected based on many criteria: their flexibility on assignments, their flexibility to work the 15-hour election with a two-hour set up prior to the election, and their ability to grasp the processes and technology being used.
“More flexible poll workers tend to get placed more frequently,” Bucaro said. “And we’re evaluating them in training and we want to put the best quality, the best poll workers in the field.”
Shwetha Pai, of West Chester Twp. will be working her first election this November, and is doing so because she wanted to participate in the election that didn’t involve the often time-consuming campaigning for a candidate she would support.
Going through her first poll worker training is “interesting,” she said.
“It’s very much more procedural than I would have thought and there’s a lot of security aspects that I didn’t even think about,” Pai said. “What’s been educational for me is how easy they try to make it and how accessible they make the ability to vote.”
Poll workers are learning how to work the new electronic poll books as well as what to do if a voter doesn’t have one of the required forms of identification, or if that identification does not have the current address.
“If you have the ID, if you are registered, it’s very easy to vote,” Pai said. “And if you don’t, you still get a chance (to vote).”
Susan Vaughn, of Hamilton, has been a poll worker for a handful of elections. Compared to previous trainings, she said this year’s “is wonderful.”
“It’s like night and day,” she said. “I think the familiarity with an iPad, I think so many use that technology. It’s intuitive. It tells you what to do, so you don’t have to think about it.”
Poll workers will report to one of the 89 polling locations around the county on the Monday before the election for set up, and at 5:30 a.m. on Election Day.
VOTERS GUIDE ONLINE
Ohio’s prescription drug ballot issue is dominating this election cycle, but State Issue 2 is not the only issue facing voters.
There are dozens of local races for mayor, city councils, school boards and township trustees. There’s also fire levies and countywide tax issues on the ballot.
Find out what's on the ballot in your area in our interactive voters guide at vote.Journal-News.com.
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