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Recruiting more poll workers
The Georgia Secretary of State's Office is trying to recruit more poll worker for this November's election.
ATLANTA - Both state and local officials promised Monday they are working to fix the issues that plagued the primary on June 9, including long lines and a lack of poll workers.
"The bulk of the issues we saw were due to unfamiliarity with the new election system, not a surprise considering COVID-19 arrived just as poll worker training would have gone into full swing," explained Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
Those comments came as part of a virtual round table discussion with members of the Committee on House Administration and other Georgia congressmen.
Sec. Raffensperger said the state has partnered with community groups to recruit 6,000 new poll workers, particularly younger ones. Many polling locations were short staffed after older, experienced workers chose not to participate because of the risk of exposure to coronavirus.
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Members of the Fulton County Board of Elections said they have had more than 8,500 people apply to be poll workers since June, though they will likely only use a quarter of that number.
"Going forward we do have a fairly large list of people that we can hopefully fall onto, even though we won't need 8,500," explained Board Member Mark Wingate.
The Secretary of State's Office plans to run advertisements encouraging voters to take advantage of advance voting or absentee voting options to reduce the number of people who go to the polls on Election Day.
"While no election is ever perfect and it is likely November will have its issues, we have dedicated time, effort and significant resources to make November a success," said Raffensperger.
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