For those of us gripped by a concern that Democracy is fragile and at risk here in the US here is a path towards restoring faith in government of the people and by the people. We Want You…to be a Poll Worker comes from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, a prominent voice on Campaign and election reform.
In the long term, we need to figure out a way to recruit good poll workers. Current innovations include having high school students, many of whom would ordinarily be too young to serve as poll workers, staff the polls as part of their civics classes. We’d like to see other innovations: states could consider exempting poll workers from jury service for some period of time-surely many of you would rather serve one day than possibly get put on a weeks-long trial. Another innovation might be offering continuing legal education (CLE) credit for service at the polls. (Lawyers usually need to take some sort of continuing education classes to maintain their bar license, but often alternative activities such as judging moot courts or writing articles will count for credit as well.) Like jury service, CLE requirements can be a hassle to fulfill, and working the polls might be a nice alternative. In the credit framework, colleges and universities could also offer credit for work at the polls, either course credit or towards community service requirements.
Born 1950, Married, Living in Austin Texas, Semi
Retired Small Business owner and investor. My political interest
evolved out of his business experience that the best decisions come out of an objective gathering of information and a pragmatic consideration of costs and benefits. I am interested in promoting Centrist candidates and Policies. My posts are mostly about people and policies that I believe are part of the solution rather the problem.