The 2,600 poll workers needed to run Tuesday’s general election in Prince George’s County are being hired and trained, according to the county’s interim elections administrator.
“We continue to pick up judges as they come in,” Robert Antonetti Sr. told The Examiner earlier this week. “Wherever anyone volunteered to become a judge, we put them in a precinct.”
The Sept. 12 primary election in Prince George’s County was marred by poll workers who didn’t show up the morning of the vote as well as by a shortage of technicians to properly connect and install the electronic voter registration and polling machines. Board of Elections head Antonetti went before the County Council in early October and pleaded for help in finding workers for the county’s 206 voting precincts in time for the general election. That request yielded almost no new workers.
“I got one offer of a judge from a Council member,” Antonetti said. “You know, they’re not very good at helping recruit.”
The county has reassessed the number of poll workers it needs to hold the election, Antonetti said, cutting 200 from its goal of 2,800. Those who are being hired to run the election have directions on how to transmit vote information to election headquarters in Upper Marlboro either electronically or physically, Antonetti said. The Prince George’s County Sheriff’s Office will help ensure vote information is not abandoned at the polls by workers looking to leave after a long day, Antonetti said.
“No one leaves the precinct until everything is done,” Antonetti said.
The board will have a 50-operator communications center set up at its offices to handle queries from precinct poll workers. Planning for an election usually takes about 18 months, Antonetti said, and then the board turns all of its preparations over to workers who have, at most, three hours of training.
“That, to me, is very, very dangerous,” Antonetti said. “But, again, that’s how elections are run.”
Part of the Washington DC Examiner’s 2006 election coverage.
