Lucas County facing urgent need of poll workers

Oct. 27—The Lucas County Board of Elections, in serious need of poll workers, is scrambling to fill about 70 vacant positions in time to handle the flood of voters on Election Day.

The need is greatest in Lucas County's suburbs.

Both the local board and Frank LaRose, the Ohio Secretary of State, who oversees elections in Ohio, issued calls Wednesday for people to step up and help make sure voting places are well-staffed come Tuesday.

"In many counties, there's still a need. We know there's a need in Lucas County," Mr. LaRose said. "We want to make sure every polling location opens on time with an adequate number of poll workers."

The Lucas County board on Wednesday issued an alert calling for people to sign up to work either as precinct poll workers, at a wage of $165, including the training, or $12 an hour to work the substation and as a driver.

"Every election we see people drop off at the last minute. Usually, we don't have as much drop off in the suburbs," said LaVera Scott, elections director. She said some of those not able to work are citing fears about the coronavirus.

The board said it has many openings in Oregon, Sylvania, Maumee, Monclova Township, and Ottawa Hills.

Under state law, the minimum requirement is for four poll workers for each precinct — two Democrats and two Republicans, unless a single voting location has more than two precincts. In those cases, fewer poll workers are required. According to Deputy Elections Director Tim Monaco, Lucas County needs 939 poll workers for its 313 precincts.

Ms. Scott said four classes are scheduled for Friday, Saturday, and Monday, and each can take 30 people. As of Wednesday afternoon, 52 of the 120 slots were filled, but she said the numbers were changing by the hour.

She said she would like to fill as many of the slots as possible.

"Inevitably on Monday people are going to call and say 'I can't work.' I'd rather have people trained and not need these people," she said.

"If people really want to work there's always something I can find for them to do on election night," Ms. Scott said.

Mr. LaRose said Ohio employs about 56,000 people per election, and said he wants to create a reserve force of trained and sworn poll workers to step in when vacancies occur at the last minute to maintain Ohio's reputation for fair, accessible, and secure elections.

He also said the goal is to create an "army of truth-tellers — both Republicans and Democrats — that have gotten the training and understand how elections work and they are very well equipped to help us push back against some of the false information that's out there."

"They are people in their own community that are a source of accurate information when someone in their family posts some nonsense conspiracy theory, or somebody that they know shares an email about secret internet connections or something like that, these are the people in a position to say no, that's not true, here in Ohio we don't do it that way," the Republican secretary of state said.

He cited a number of programs aimed at boosting the numbers of trained poll workers. Those include allowing professionals, such as lawyers, accountants, librarians, Realtors, and social workers to county poll worker training toward their continuing education requirements.

There are also appeals to veterans groups that Mr. LaRose calls "a second call to action" to get them to work the polls. And he said high school social studies teachers are being reminded that 17-year-olds can work the polls. Serving as a poll worker can help burnish a college application, Mr. LaRose said.

He said if a county comes up short on election day, some difficult choices will have to be made. He said some states have had to assign sheriff's deputies to polling places.

In its news release, the elections board said that "being a precinct election official is a great way to participate in the election process, and allows for greater civic engagement within the community," and that poll workers are "a vital part of the democratic process."

Interested persons should contact Robert Royster at 419-213-2045 or Veronica Hill at 419-213- 2034.