Michael Wolf loves handing out stickers on Election Day.
During September’s primary elections, he got to try out his new role as moderator for Ward 11 on Manchester’s west side. Even though he was down a few poll workers that day, he said voting went smoothly.
But with a little under a month to go until the general election, the ward still needs volunteers – especially for ballot inspectors and greeters.
“[We] are kind of concerned about November because it's going to be obviously much busier. And we've got to make sure that we have more people who are willing to come out and help,” he said.
Turnout in the 2020 general election was 2.5 times higher than the state primary. But the search for more poll workers isn’t exclusive to Manchester. Cities and towns across the state and the country are still looking for people to work the polls.
Ben Hovland from the federal Election Assistance Commission said having fully staffed polling places is important – especially when recent studies show voters are placing less trust in elections. Because of this, Hovland said making sure that voting day runs smoothly can build confidence for both voters and poll workers.
“You also get to see so many of the safeguards that are in place,” he said. “Checking those ballots at the beginning of the day and seeing the number, filling out the various chain of custody documents, checking those security seals on equipment.”
Hovland said there are shortages for poll workers that speak languages other than English and poll workers from different parties. In New Hampshire, state law requires each polling place to have election inspectors from both parties to make sure the election runs without a hitch. Because of this, areas that lean more heavily towards one party can make it harder to find an election inspector from the other party.
In Nashua, finding poll workers comes with additional language challenges. More broadly, about 16% of citizens in Nashua spoke a language other than English, compared to 6% of citizens in the whole state, according to 2020 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Angela Mercado is the director of the community engagement training center. She’s been trying to recruit volunteers who can provide language assistance at the polls, Spanish in particular.
However, this hasn’t been easy as Latinos are less likely to be registered to vote and often excluded from political outreach.
Mercado co-hosted an event at the public library on Sept. 28 to talk to voters about their questions and recruit volunteers who can provide language help.
“Unfortunately, a lot of our Latinos are working two or three and it’s hard because they can’t pay their own bills,‘ she said in Spanish “So [city officials] should take into account that if they offered a job, [Latinos] would be happy to give their time.”
Mercado said Latinos are often juggling multiple jobs to make ends meet, and added that more would sign up if the pay offered to poll workers is the same as a job. Despite the barriers, Mercado said she has been successful in training about 30 volunteers and is still looking for willing participants so they can help the rest of the community.
The pay for a poll worker depends on the municipality. For example, Nashua recently changed the rules so poll workers were paid $15 an hour, according to the City Clerk’s office. In Manchester, workers are paid $280 a day, up from the $180 they were paid in previous years.
Librarian Julie Annette Rosier said the public library is also stepping up to help with recruitment. During election season, the library hosts an information station with materials to help voters and a clipboard so patrons can sign up to become poll workers.
“If there are people that are bilingual that are available to become poll workers even better because that's where we know that there are going to be those services in every location,” she said.
Although the law doesn’t specify a last day to register as a poll worker, it depends on when the last day of training is in that municipality.
