The Real Super Heroes Of Elections: 50,000 Georgians Answer The Call To Serve Local Elections
(Atlanta) -- Georgia’s poll workers are the real elections superheroes. 50,000 Georgians have answered the call to help the November elections run smoothly and to help uphold ballot access for their fellow voters. After COVID-19 swept the country, forcing Georgia’s mostly elderly poll workers to stay home to avoid contracting the virus, these heroes signed up to be on the front line, helping make sure democracy thrives in Georgia.
“After COVID-19 forced Georgia’s largely elderly poll workers to stay home, more than 50,000 Georgia voters took action to ensure a safe and efficient election,” said Secretary Raffensperger. “Though we originally aimed to recruit just 10,000 Georgians, average, everyday voters joined the effort in droves, exceeding even our expectations. These heroes deserve to be recognized for their selfless dedication to upholding democracy in Georgia.”
On June 9, on top the other logistical difficulties and unprecedented challenges Georgia faced in administering an election during a rapidly spreading pandemic, Georgia’s counties struggled to find poll workers to fully staff polling locations. Before the pandemic, poll workers averaged over age 65, a demographic that is particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. Understandably, those poll workers opted to stay home rather than risk their health to work the polls.
The loss of these poll workers resulted in not only a significant decrease in available workers, but also a loss of experienced poll workers and a decrease in polling locations. Without staff to operate them, counties could open fewer polling locations overall. When they could open and fully staff polling locations, the poll workers had less experience in the rhythm and flow of Election Day to help voting move smoothly. New recruits were also difficult to train effectively given the constraints of COVID-19.
Seeking to avoid a repeat, Raffensperger issued a call for help from younger Georgians to staff the polls in November. Georgia voters quickly answered the call and the number of volunteers swelled. The number of Georgians willing to step up soon surpassed the 10,000 originally targeted and reached over 50,000 total.
Georgia is recognized as a national leader in elections. It was the first state in the country to implement the trifecta of automatic voter registration, at least 16 days of early voting (which has been called the “gold standard”), and no-excuse absentee voting. Georgia continues to set records for voter turnout and election participation, seeing the largest increase in average turnout of any other state in the 2018 midterm election and record primary turnout in 2020, with over 1.1 million absentee by mail voters and over 1.2 million in-person voters utilizing Georgia’s new, secure, paper ballot voting system.
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