[EL] Adventures in Voter ID

[Lillie Coney]

These are important reasons for reform of the poll worker model.  Phasing it out for a voter registration card and pass code similar to ATMs might be worth consideration. Ballot access could be controlled, limit poll worker voter interaction to what is necessary. Poll workers as gatekeepers has gotten more complex--new rules to learn and media focus on fraud prior to general elections make the work harder.

We also need poll workers that reflect the people served by the polling location: professional women, blue collar workers, new citizens, young and minority voters can help solve miscommunication and maintain equity in how rules are applied.

Getting employers to give credit for poll work like what is required for jury duty or employees to donate a couple of vacation days requires a culture shift from its a government responsibility to vital support for a healthy Democracy.



Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 13, 2012, at 12:04 PM, Joseph Lorenzo Hall <joehall at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 9:22 AM, Edward Still <still at votelaw.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Being a poll official is a tough job. I know because I have served as one.
>> But it is made tougher by training that tells poll workers that the purpose
>> of an ID is to check my address.
> 
> I suspect this might be some combination of their wanting to see the
> address to look you up more easily in the roster (if it is
> address-indexed) and a complex slightly-adversarial social interaction
> where the pollworker noticed then that your ID was different from all
> the others they had seen that day... then they tried to get you to
> "fix" that condition by asking you to show them the version of the ID
> they had seen all day.  Training is hard and often the exact details
> of policy, procedure and technology (the format of an ID card) can get
> lost to pollworkers after they ingrain the very mechanical tasks they
> are assigned.
> 
> best, Joe
> 
> -- 
> Joseph Lorenzo Hall
> Postdoctoral Research Fellow
> Media, Culture and Communication
> New York University
> https://josephhall.org/
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