Election Officials Prep For An Ugly 2024 With Mental Health And Stress Trainings For Staff

TPM Article Topics
#1

In a normal election year, election workers would be focused on recruiting and training poll workers, securing polling sites, preparing voting technology, and providing voters with the information they need to cast a ballot in the months leading up to November. But after the chaos, threats and violence of 2020, election officials across the country are  adding mental health training for election workers to their election prep to-do lists.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1482648
#2

Well. I’m an election official in Virginia, and have been since 2008 (the Obama election). I’ve served as a regular officer (checking folks in, setting up and closing), a precinct chief (responsible for everything and every voter between 5 am and 7 pm on Election Day), and currently an Assistant Chief. Super Tuesday was my 35th election, and I’m here to say I have never been subjected to anything that warrants discussion, nor have I witnessed anything of that sort. Our elections are incredibly clean and efficient, and the only recounts take place when the margin is just too close. I genuinely feel for those referenced in the article, but it’s not a universal experience. Thank heavens.

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#3

I haven’t been an Election Official since 2012, when I moved from from Wisonsin to a state where we vote our ballots through the mail. It has worked well; however our mail service shitz big time, to the point where I do not trust that a ballot will get delivered in time. So I deposit my ballots directly in the ballot boxes outside the Courthouse, which is not difficult (for me) at all. But others may find difficult.

I loved being in charge of the four wards under me. We were a seasoned team, in a very pleasant, small suburb of Milwaukee.The polling locations were mostly walkable from any point in the city. Every election, we could easily record over 90% of our ward’s voters. In Presidential Elections, always over 95%. It was almost a family tradition, a reunion. We all knew each other. They were our neighbors, our teachers, our store clerks, our friends.

That started changing in 2010, when we were required to show our Driver License or our Voter IDs.
Elections got more tense and political. Voter Monitors started breathing down our necks – all from the Republican officials. Many of the best pollworkers had enough, and decided to drop out of what used to be a great night of very rewarding work. I did not blame them a bit.

Funny now, I go into a local bank or health clinic, and at every window there is a sign posted on the window or desk advising the public to “Be Nice.” It sticks in my craw, but I understand that the harassment of our service providers has increased, and civility is not a given any more.

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#4

Personally, I believe that interference with an election official should be a Federal felony that carries a life without parole sentence, if found guilty.

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#5

I wonder when Ruby and Shaye will see some of their $140M out of Rudy?

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#6

This is RIDICULOUS! My 18 year old son was an election worker. He LOVED it and learned so much. To have these overgrown self entitled nimrods trying to destroy the process makes me CRAZY.

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#7

Being an election worker is a great way for a senior citizen to make some extra money and spend time with his or her neighbors. It shouldn’t entitle one to combat pay or stress training. God I hate what Donald Trump and the MAGA crowd has done to America.

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#8

Here is a cnn medicine headline that shows they’re clueless both about headline writing and LSD…

Single dose of LSD provides immediate and lasting relief from anxiety, study says

… … … … … … … …
In my experience in the middle 1960’s with LSD procured from Albert Hofmann at Sandoz I can say the effects of a dose are hours long and certainly can be anything but anxiety relieving. So, saying there is immediate relief shows that whoever wrote this headline is clueless about LSD
I hope that the clinical trial going on by Mind Medicine Inc works and actually does relieve anxiety disorder.

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#9

Realize senior citizens are probably not the group best doing this very detailed, stressful work – you need to hear well, move well, be quick and very detailed, and truly understand the rules and requirements; and constant and even throughout a day that is often 14 hours of work, with a lunch break if you can get it. Back in the days I worked, that evened out to a pay of roughly $3/hr.

I was able to recruit many friends to become poll workers in their own wards, and I was able to build a team with a great mix of ages – who all worked like a team, because that is what it takes – aged 20 through 80. Most of us were in our 50-60s. To take a day off work to do this is a true mitzvah!

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#10

I hope President Biden and all his supporters are ready to defend democracy and the Constitution.

We know how vigorously and violently Skanky, Wanky, the Family, Ginni’s Pubes, and the Republican Party attacked the Capitol, and attempted to assassinate the Speaker and the Vice President to overthrow the election results during the January 6 Coup.

I am really afraid there is going to be another a coup and a spiraling descent into white christian nationalist tyranny.

#11

You haven’t been voting long have you? It is hard for election supervisors to find young people to work a few days a year. As long as I have been voting the polls have been run by senior citizens who haven’t had much of a problem. This shit didn’t happen before Trump.

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#12

Good for your son. I am glad he learned a lot.

My objection is your comment that senior citizens just aren’t up to working the polls. Again you must not vote very often or if you do it is in a college town where kids like your son are recruited. In most of the country, most years, you get a chance to meet gandma and grandpa working the polls.

I think we agree, the MAGA nimrods are trying to destroy the process and that makes me crazy too.

#13

I’ve been voting for 54 years. And I served as a poll worker, and ended up an election official and pollworker for almost 15 years. Most of the poll workers were probably in their late 50s and on. And, sadly, were starting to fade in energy and skills. And, year after year, the technology and the laws required more savvy and more detailed accounting skills. I was very proud of my team. We were ONCE off by ONE point in the last 10 years I supervised four wards. You have no idea how hard that is unless you have done the work yourself.

Believe it or not, it is possible to recruit good, dedicated, and young workers to work the polls, and most of the “oldsters” were actually happy with their young peers. It energized them!

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#14

Good for you. You are living is a different state than I am.

If you have been voting for 54 years then by your standards you are too old to work at the polls. Your community is going to miss you this year.

By the way I used to work the polls as well. I was a lawyer who would take one day off a year to help out. We didn’t have nearly as many young people as you were blessed with. Mostly we had older people who were recently retired and looking for a few bucks and a chance to talk to their neighbors.

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#15

My “community” still contacts me, after 12 years, to let me know what is going on in Wisconsin. And wanting me to console them. I saw the huge change in Wisconsin during 1970, again in 1980, and it continued to get worse until the final straw, in 2010, when I decided to leave that totally broken state, in 2012.

And yes, I believe the best of my poll-working abilities are now exhausted. I’d have to be carrying my gun to the polls. And that would not be pretty.

And good for you, too! It was a great service to give to your community, and there are PLENTY! of people who would do well to sign up for poll-working, of all ages. It’s pretty easy to do, and takes four days a year. And it is a real, active lesson in Democracy.

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#16

Darling Allen told TPM that the fact that election officials are now being asked to learn to mitigate the effects of violent threats and harassment, is akin to “asking the rape victim, why’d you wear that outfit?”

Not sure I agree. I think the emphasis is on everyone’s mental and physical well-being, not shaming or blaming the victim.

#17

It’s terrifying because it’s true.

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#18

Election Judge in Texas: The State has added additional documentation for judges and has not increased number of Election Staff. We started at 5:30 AM and left the final step at 10PM.
During the election, people were irate that they could not use their phones and concerned that they did not know people on the ballot, although the ballots were divided by Dem Ballots and GOP ballots.
State did away with Party vote button ( which ironically would not help on this ballot if more than one candidate for one party was on the voter’s ballot) - but they complained anyhow. Turnout was terrible, 14% and still people whined.
There was a problem with Vote By Mail ballot process. We have not heard if the problem with USPS or at the Election office.

It will only get worse in NOV.

And then I was non-functional for 24 hours.

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#19

Mental health advice for reality-based non-MAGA poll workers:

  1. Buy a gun.
  2. Learn to use it.
  3. Bring it to work.
  4. Display it prominently on your work table.
  5. Don’t be afraid to brandish it if some screaming MAGAt is trying to challenge the qualifications of some innocent brown voter.

I fully know that I should end this with /s , but I am somewhat ambivalent about doing so.

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#20

What a wonderful idea – new voters volunteering their energy to a truly wonderful experience in direct Democracy. I an so glad he had a good experience. It will be with him forever. My deep bow to him:

:pray:t3: :pray:t3:

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