CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WV News) — Secretary of State Mac Warner is calling on West Virginia’s registered voters to become poll workers for the Nov. 3 general election.
Ahead of Tuesday’s National Poll Worker Recruitment Day, Warner’s office announced a partnership with the United Way of West Virginia in an effort to identify eligible citizens willing to serve as alternate poll workers.
“The United Way has stepped up in a beautiful fashion in working with all their agencies throughout the state,” Warner said. “It’s just a great resource. It’s a web of people who are already community and civically minded. So to get them to work with the elections, it just fits right in.”
The United Way is the second organization to join Warner’s office in finding alternate poll workers, following the West Virginia Real Estate Commission.
During the June primary, many counties reduced the number of polling places, partly due to increased absentee voting participation because of the COVID-19 pandemic and partly due to a lack of poll workers.
“We had sufficient number of poll workers (for the primary), a couple of counties were challenged but everybody got through it okay,” Warner said. “But we’re trying to get out in front of it this time for the general election so all the precincts can open and people will have that option to go vote in person if they so choose.”
Optimally, each precinct should operate with at least five poll workers, Warner said.
“Each one of those, ideally, should have five. So that’s over 9,000 you need on Election Day,” he said. “We do have the option of opening with fewer than five — with as few as three — but that’s not ideal. That’s more of an emergency scenario, if someone calls in sick at the last minute.”
To be a poll worker in West Virginia, a citizen must be registered to vote in their county, be able to read and write the English language, attend training and be available to work all of Election Day, Warner said.
“It can be a long day, but people are paid for their work, and they are paid for the training as well,” he said.
The compensation varies from county to county, but poll workers typically make between $150 to $250, Warner said.
Anyone interested in becoming a poll worker should visit govotewv.com, Warner said.
“What we want people to do is go to the website,” he said. “One of the buttons on the bottom row says ‘Become A Poll Worker.’ It’s real quick, you just fill out the information there so we can get back ahold of you. Then we will portion that out to the counties accordingly.”
At least two counties have already said they have a sufficient amount of poll workers, Warner said.
“So they don’t want people calling the courthouse and tying up the clerk’s time,” he said. “So that’s why we’re running it through our website.”
The website also contains a portal where voters can request an absentee ballot to participate in the election.
On July 27, Warner announced all the state’s registered voters would be able to cite concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic as reason to request an absentee ballot for the general election.
All voters need to do is simply select “Illness, injury or other medical reason which keeps me confined” as the reason for requesting an absentee ballot application.
More than 40,000 voters have already requested an absentee ballot, either through the portal or by contacting their local clerk, Warner said.
“We’ve probably had 40,000 or 45,000 people so far,” he said. “We had 260,000 total in the primary, but we’re still a number of months out. The ballots don’t start going out until Sept. 18, and I think that when people start hearing that others have gotten their ballots, I think that’s when things will start to pick back up again, as far as registering for absentee ballots.”
Absentee ballots will begin to be sent out to voters on Sept. 18; Oct. 13 is the deadline for voter registration; and early voting will take place from Oct. 21 to Oct. 31; and last day to request an absentee ballot is Oct. 28.
Returned absentee ballots must be postmarked by Nov. 3 in order to count.
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