On Election Day, poll workers will be in the spotlight

On Nov. 5, from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., roughly 45,000 poll workers in Pennsylvania will staff more than 9,000 polling places. Their task is often thankless.

When I’ve voted in the past, I rarely pay attention to what poll workers are doing, except to say a warm hello. I’ve been much more focused on my ballot and the consequences of election results than on the people who perform the essential work of making sure we can vote on Election Day. After the events of the past four years, I don’t think I’ll ever take them for granted again.

Former President Donald Trump, in his efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election, has accused poll workers (without any evidence) of taking part in a conspiracy to keep him out of office. Since then, poll workers have faced the ire of Trump’s most fervent supporters, which has sometimes included death threats.

While the outcome of next month’s election is unpredictable and tight, one thing is for sure: The poll workers of Bucks County — which is widely considered a must-win for both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris — will be in the spotlight. It wasn’t always this way. Past generations of poll workers didn’t fear for their safety. Their job was administrative, a civic duty, not one on the front lines of escalating political violence.

I spoke with Sandra Kerr, Kathleen Welsh Beveridge, and Jim Furlong — three of roughly 2,100 poll workers in Bucks County who will be running the polls. Here are four takeaways from our conversations.

There are vanishingly few places in our political lives where loyalty to country and democratic ideals — not party — is paramount. Getting involved in elections as a poll worker, I learned, is one of the best ways to stand up for our democracy in divisive times.

Kerr, 63, has been a poll worker, serving as both a judge of elections and minority inspector, since the 2020 primary. “We lost a lot of poll workers, especially when COVID hit,” she said. “They were desperate for volunteers.”

Many volunteers stay in the role for a lifetime out of a sense of duty. The judge of elections who Kerr replaced, Thomas Lurz, worked at elections for decades before he passed away in May. His widow, Sheree Cote, is still working at the same polling place this year.

Furlong, 73, is one of these veterans; he started working elections in Bucks County in 1960, when he was 10 years old and John F. Kennedy was on the ballot. “Part of being a good citizen, I think, is being involved,” Furlong said. His parents and grandparents instilled in him the value of service. “We have a great country. It can always be better.”

It is much easier to stand on the sidelines and critique elections than it is to get our hands involved in the (often mundane) processes of running an election smoothly at the local level. But too few of us do. Polling places in Bucks County are understaffed, the Board of Elections told me, by about 300 poll workers. This shortage is reflected nationwide.

Clearly, more of us need to step up.

Beveridge, 54, who has been a judge of elections since 2020, volunteered because she was concerned that older adults in Bucks County would be vulnerable during the pandemic. The desire to keep our democracy intact keeps her going.

“We’re always going to need people to make a system this intricate work,” Beveridge said. “We’re urging people to get in the game. Poll workers are right there, shouldering the wheel of democracy, and I think it’s essential.”

Yet what, really, do we understand of this essential task? Civic literacy in our country is abysmal. The best remedy to that lack of knowledge about how our elections work is to sign up to work the polls.

“If only people would just spend a day in the life of a poll worker,” Kerr said, “they would see the checks and balances that are in place.”

Our voting system is secure, Beveridge said, because of those intricacies. “When you see how secure the process is, how difficult it is to cheat even for one vote, you would recognize that the suggestions that people are making about massive voter fraud are impossible,” she said.

Kerr’s advice for skeptics was simple: “You can’t complain about the process until you’ve actually done the process.”

In her four years of working polls in Bucks County, Kerr has heard many people — especially those who vote only in presidential elections — voice questions about voting machines. As judge of elections, her job is to explain the process so that people feel confident their vote will be recorded accurately.

“People can get a little bit worked up,” she said. Answering questions calmly is her strategy, and it often works.

“Poll workers are right there, shouldering the wheel of democracy, and I think it’s essential.”

To be clear, asking questions about the voting process isn’t a bad thing. Like many of us, until she worked the polls, Kerr “had no concept, none, of what was involved.” She strives to be welcoming “It’s all about making people understand the process and being transparent,” she said.

It’s important, however, to be respectful of poll workers. (These are our neighbors, remember.) De-escalating tensions wherever possible is arguably the most important thing all of us can do to keep our polling places safe from the threats of political violence.

Threats to poll workers have been intensifying. In his 64 years of working polls in Bucks County, Furlong has seen voting deteriorate from an environment of civility into acrimony. The first signs of tension he noticed were in 1980, when the combination of Watergate, the Vietnam War, and inflation in the 1970s had voters on edge. Within a few years, that simmering tension subsided.

Furlong next noticed escalating tensions in 2008, when “racism started to rear its ugly head” in Bucks County, with then-Sen. Barack Obama on the ballot. Then, “the floodgates changed in 2016,” Furlong said.

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That year, when Trump was running for his first term as president, the judge of elections at Furlong’s polling place had to call the police. A Trump voter, a “big strong fella,” was harassing and threatening election board members. To his recollection, no charges were brought.

Hearing this story, I couldn’t help but shudder.

The threat of violence at the polls — while not a top concern — lingers at the back of Kerr’s mind. “Is someone going to come in, get upset, and get violent?” she asked. “I don’t know. We have constables, but still, there’s a little unease.”

Beveridge is prepared for the possibility of a tense Election Day, too. “This is the first presidential election since Jan. 6, 2021, and so there’s a chance that people will be agitated,” she said. “I don’t expect violence,” Beveridge added, “but you never know.”

I won’t be alone in holding my breath as the votes are tallied in Bucks County and other crucial swing districts across Pennsylvania. If there’s one hope I have for my country, let it be this: that we accept the results, no matter what happens, and move forward peacefully — there’s nothing more democratic than that.

And, when in doubt, just say thank you to the people working at your polling place. Chances are they need to hear it.