Sept. 1 is National Poll Worker Recruitment Day and the New Jersey-based Poll Hero Project aims to sign up 5,000 new poll workers by the end of the day.
According the Poll Hero Project, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented shortage in volunteer poll workers, as their average national age is 62. Students from both Princeton University and Denver East High School united about a month ago to help solve this problem by creating the Poll Hero Project, which uses social media to reach out to politically active high school and university students who might be interested in signing up to be poll workers.
“The project has grown from around a couple dozen signups a week to a couple hundred a day,” said Olivia Cao, salutatorian for the Lenape High School class of 2020 and incoming Princeton University freshman. She is among those working at the local level to combat what she described as “the impending poll worker crisis in South Jersey.”
“After seeing the devastating effects on voter turnout and safety, I knew I had to do something,” Cao said.
High school and college students interested in becoming poll workers can register at pollhero.org/signup or contact [email protected] for more information.
While Sept. 1 is National Poll Worker Recruitment Day, there is currently no deadline to apply to be a poll worker.
Visit the Poll Hero Project website at pollhero.org.
