- Title: New Jersey county turns to high school students to meet poll worker demand
- Date: 1st May 2024
- Summary: HACKENSACK, NEW JERSEY, UNITED STATES (APRIL 24, 2024) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS PARTICIPATING IN ELECTION POLL WORKER TRAINING PROGRAM AT BERGEN COUNTY ACADEMIES VARIOUS OF GENERIC BALLOT USED IN TRAINING PROGRAM (SOUNDBITE) (English) BERGEN COUNTY EXECUTIVE, JIM TEDESCO, SAYING: “Well, we’re here at Bergen County Academies to talk to the young people ab
- Embargoed: 15th May 2024 11:00
- Keywords: Bergen County New Jersey elections high school old poll workers shortage students technology training voting machines youth
- Location: HACKENSACK, NEW JERSEY, UNITED STATES
- City: HACKENSACK, NEW JERSEY, UNITED STATES
- Country: US
- Topics: North America,Government/Politics,Elections/Voting
- Reuters ID: LVA001787825042024RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Voters in New Jersey’s Bergen County will be greeted by a new sight come election day: high school students serving as poll workers.
On Wednesday (April 24), more than thirty 16-and-17-year-old students at Bergen County Academies, a public magnet high school in suburban Hackensack, participated in a training session to learn the ins and outs of the job.
A local election trainer gave them hands-on instruction in using the state’s new voting machines, from electronically checking in voters using Poll Pads to printing and scanning ballots.
“Because it's a presidential election, we know that we're going to have a lot of people voting. In Bergen County, there's over 600,000 registered voters. said Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco. “If 80% of those vote, you can imagine how many hundreds of thousands of people we're going to have. So, we need to make sure that we have a large contingent of poll workers.”
Bergen County currently has over 500 poll workers, Tedesco said, adding that the county will need to at least double that number for this year’s elections.
Local election officials are looking to high school students to fill that gap.
The idea was the brainchild of the Bergen County Board of Election Chair, Richard Miller.
Miller introduced a pilot training program at Teaneck High School in 2023 to meet the growing need for poll workers. And this year he’s expanding it to 8-to-10 public and parochial high schools across the county.
For working an 8-hour-shift, the students will receive $150 at the June primary election and $200 for the November general election, in addition to $50 for participating in a 2-and-a-half hour training session.
“The younger kids just really pick this up. And it's a benefit for us. It's a benefit for the county,” Miller said.
While students in the training program were still too young to cast ballots themselves, that didn’t seem to diminish their excitement about participating in the democratic process.
“Considering our last presidential, presidential election, electoral integrity I think is an extremely important part of our democracy that we've never, we've kind of taken for granted for so many years. But now it's been thrown into the spotlight. And so, becoming a poll worker, like, the job that I'll be taking a part of will be much more important than I even realize myself," 17-year-old Abhinav Kokkula said.
Hundreds of thousands of registered Bergen County voters will head to the polls for the 2024 primary election on June 4 and the general election on November 5.
“Being able to see that firsthand and actually being able to help them is something that seems really exciting,” said 16-year-old Kate Simmons.
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