College Pollworkers: Recruitment, Retention, and Training
Why College Pollworker Programs? | Overview of the Project | Core Staff
The Center for Election Integrity of Cleveland State University was awarded a contract from the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) in October 2005 to research effective practices and subsequently to develop a guidebook on the Recruitment, Retention, and Training of College Pollworkers. The project will be completed in December 2006 and the final product, a guidebook on how to recruit college students as Pollworkers, will be distributed nationally. Abigail Horn leads this study as the Principal Investigator.
Why College Pollworker Programs?
The federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) brought to the forefront a major issue that has been plaguing many election jurisdictions across the United States: a shrinking pool of qualified pollworkers in an increasingly technology-driven Election Day system. Recruiting college students to serve as pollworkers helps address this problem on many levels:
- College students are well educated and oriented toward learning.
- College students tend to be comfortable with computers and other new technologies, and may bring skills to help solve technology-related problems.
- College students generally have the energy and enthusiasm to make it through a long day at the polls.
- College students are generally physically able to carry needed supplies and set up heavy equipment.
- College students often have flexible schedules that can accommodate pollworker training and election day work.
- College students are more likely to vote and adopt a lifelong commitment to civic involvement if they are encouraged and integrated into the democratic system at an early age.
College students are not, however, a panacea to the pollworker shortage problem. College students are an excellent resource but they are not likely to make up the core group of pollworkers for most election jurisdictions. Impediments include that they frequently are not registered to vote in the same State where they study; most will work for only one or two elections; and their classes and assignments can conflict with working a full Election Day.
Overview of the Project
Project Working Group (PWG). A seven person working group provides external advice on the project. Members were selected for their individual areas of expertise and experience as well as to attempt to ensure bi-partisan and non-partisan input. They review all of the contract deliverables for content and provide expert input. Members include election officials from around the country, professors and administrators from colleges and universities that have implemented college pollworker programs, and a college student to provide a student’s perspective. We held our first PWG meeting on Friday, March 3 in Washington, DC at the EAC offices. All participants were asked to review our Effective Strategies/Best Practices document prior to the meeting. The discussion was extremely rich in which the working group provided valuable input and gave their overall approval and encouragement for the work completed to date. The PWG will continue to communicate by email and teleconferences when needed. The next meeting in person will occur fall 2006, either before the November elections or after, depending on member scheduling and project needs.
Collection of Effective Strategies. We have collected lessons learned and effective strategies from existing college pollworker programs from around the country. Surprisingly few on-going, structured programs for college pollworker recruitment exist currently. Several election jurisdictions do try to recruit college students but they lack a formal partnership with the schools. A few States currently have or are developing statewide initiatives. For our strategies, we reviewed:
- Materials from the 15 colleges and universities (including community colleges) that had EAC grants in 2004 to run college pollworker recruitment programs
- New Millennium Best Practices State survey (July 2003)
- NACo Pollworker Recruitment, Training and Retention Survey (April 2006)
- Materials from other independent programs. We then followed up with hundreds of phone calls to many of the above programs to learn more about their strategies and experiences. We used a structured interview to collect information. We also held focus groups (explained below) to further assess our findings. Given the lack of broad experience running college pollworker programs, we are not comfortable using the term “best practices” as they have not been implemented enough to compare outcomes. The criteria we deployed to determine which strategies would be selected for inclusion in the College Pollworker Guidebook are whether the strategy is:
- Practical
- Feasible
- Sustainable
Our project working group, the focus groups, and the pilot projects have been set up to help determine if our strategies meet these three criteria.
Focus Groups. The Center completed focus groups in four sites in February and early March. Where applicable, we conducted one focus group with students that had participated as pollworkers in the past and one with students that have not been pollworkers. We also conducted in-depth interviews with participating college administrators and election officials. The findings by and large reiterated the best practices and strategies we had already documented. Our primary goal was to test if the strategies were practical and feasible. The findings were integrated into our Effective Strategies document that serves as the basis for our Guidebook.
The focus groups were selected to reflect regional diversity and a diversity of school types (state universities, private colleges and community colleges).
State Statute Compendium of Requirements to be a Pollworker. We collected all of the relevant State statutes on pollworkers from the 50 States, Washington, DC and four territories. That data was synthesized into individual state sheets which summarize the requirements including: place of residency, registration status, age, political affiliation and training. These State summaries will be published for the public on the EAC’s webpage. A quick reference chart for the data will be included in our Guidebook. Multiple efforts have been made to confirm all of the data with election officials in every State and territory. Most has been confirmed and that which has not is identified in the chart. Several States have pending legislation that could change their requirements. We recommend that the EAC treat the Compendium as a living document that will need updating every year.
The most interesting findings from the Compendium are the potential legal impediments to implementing college pollworker programs. These are discussed in detail below. Also, it’s important to note that there are also some discrepancies between state policy and how some counties administer their pollworker programs in practice. We will advise all schools that wish to run a college pollworker program to review the regulations with their local election jurisdiction and to determine local variations.
Guidebook. The Center completed the first version of our Guidebook for Recruiting College Pollworkers based upon our findings above. We worked with an adult education expert to design the presentation of the information. Our objective was to make the guidebook as user-friendly, easy to read, and helpful as possible. It is written for two audiences: election officials looking to recruit more college students as pollworkers and colleges/universities interested in involving their student body in the electoral process in a meaningful way. The strategy is to create a partnership between election jurisdictions and local schools to implement the program together. Abigail Horn is the principal author of the guidebook.
Pilot Programs. Under the Center’s auspices, three college pollworker pilot projects are being conducted in 2006. The goal of these pilots is to field test the guidebook and gather feedback on how to improve it. Participants are being asked to provide input addressing: what may be missing, what is most helpful, what is not clear, what worked best.
- In order to select our three sites to field test the guidebook, we used the following criteria:
- A strong interest expressed by both the election official and the school (this will favor projects that are likely to lead to long-term relationships).
- Large and small jurisdictions should both be represented
- Community college/State School/4-year Private should all be represented.
- Minority populations represented
The three pilot sites selected are: Boston, MA; Grand Rapids, MI; and Cuyahoga County, OH.
Based upon the structured, in-depth feedback we receive from these pilot projects, we will document the additions and changes necessary for the guidebook before the EAC distributes it nationally.
Core Staff
Feature Article in Urban Update (July/August 2006)
Public Testimony on EAC Project (May 25, 2006)
Cleveland State University • 2121 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44115 • 216.687.2000