Counties preparing for primary
Apr. 4—The May Primary is about a month off. Early voting is about to begin and area clerks are filling their staffs to work the polls on Election Day.
Daviess County Clerk Lauren Milton says she has a pretty full roster.
"It is always challenging to find quality people to work the polls, but we are in good shape. We have all of our spots filled and some back-ups," she said. "What normally happens is that as we approach Election Day, we have people who for one reason or another find they can't work and I understand that. That's why I keep a list of extra people to fill those slots if I need to."
"We are searching for people to work the polls. I need one more Republican and I am looking for five more Democrats," said Martin County Clerk Julie Fithian. "We normally do not have problems filling those positions. This is usually about the time we begin looking for people. What we normally do is call everyone who worked the last election and see if they want to work the next one. We have a lot of people who have worked a lot of elections. Then we look at the open spots and try to recruit to fill in the vacancies."
Each county sets the pay rate for their poll workers. In Daviess County the people working the polls will be seeing a pretty big increase over the previous year.
"We did raise pay in Daviess County. Depending on the position they work they get paid either $200 or $225 for working election day. We do provide them meals. In the past we paid $130 to $150," said Milton. "That was a pretty good increase. Poll workers work really hard and the public understands that. They are required to take a training class and they work 14 hours on Election Day without leaving the building. It not only takes a lot of time, but a lot of knowledge to do it as a team. I asked the county council to increase their pay and they did that and I am very thankful. They are worth every penny of that."
In Martin County poll workers make less money even though there was a bump in pay for the training.
"We pay inspectors $25 for training. Some inspectors have two precincts and they make $150 for the day. Some have one and they make $125 for the day. Most of the inspectors wind up making $175 for the election. We have a couple that make $150. We do supply them with three meals on Election Day," said Fithian. "A Republican judge gets $90 for the day. A Democrat judge receives $100 for the day and they all receive $20 for the training. The difference in pay is because the Democrat judge has to accompany the inspector to the courthouse at the end of the day while the Republican judge gets to go home."
Since the 2020 election, there has been a lot of finger pointing and complaints about people working at the polls. Most of that is on a national level.
Local officials say that in rural southern Indiana there have not been any recriminations expressed against poll workers.
"That has no impact here," said Fithian. "The only struggle we have is that in a predominantly Republican county it can be difficult to find Democrats to work the polls."
"I don't think that affects anyone's opinions in Daviess County as far as being a poll worker. I can't say that for sure. I have not had anyone say that caused them not to work the polls," said Milton. "I am very thankful that we are in a rural area and we don't have a lot of the problems the bigger cities have. There is a new election law in place that includes provisions that if someone harasses a poll worker it now a felony. They did that for the bigger cities that have a lot of issues with harassment. Thankfully, we have never had that here."
Early voting will begin on April 9. In Martin County votes can be cast in the courthouse.
That is not the case in Daviess County, where a construction project has closed the courthouse. Early voting will be done this year at the Kiwanis Building in the Eastside Park.
Meanwhile, both clerks say that they are building potential poll worker lists right up to Election Day.
"We are always looking for people like that so if someone has an interest, they should contact our office and let us know, so they can get on the list for the future," said Milton.
"Have them call me," said Fithian. "Most of the people don't do it for the pay. It mostly just a chance to get out and see people and talk to them."
