Pickaway County Board of Elections needs poll workers for 2020 election

PICKAWAY COUNTY, OHIO (Pickaway Cultivator) – The Pickaway County Board of Elections is committed to the safety of every member of our staff, each of our Precinct Election Officials (Poll Workers), and every voter in the county. In the 2016 General Election, we utilized 26 polling locations throughout Pickaway County with 162 Precinct Election Officials (Poll Workers) to process over 14,000 in-person voters. Unfortunately, we currently have fewer than 50% of the needed Poll Workers signed up for the November 3rd, 2020 General Election.

In the extremely unfortunate event that we are unable to recruit and train enough volunteers to serve as Poll Workers before September 16th, The Pickaway County Board of Elections will have to consider temporarily consolidating and reducing the total number of County Polling Locations for the November 3rd General Election. Although Ohio offers voters the option to request a mail-in ballot or even vote early in-person beginning October 6th, we recognize the importance of protecting and ensuring the ability to vote in-person on Election Day.

In an effort to prevent the inconveniences that changing voting locations would create (even temporarily), we are asking schools, businesses, outreach organizations, all political parties, as well as media outlets to assist us in recruiting volunteers to serve as poll-workers for Election Day, November 3rd, 2020. There are many options that groups could take in support of this upcoming Election Day.

1.  High School Seniors age 18 and over, who are Pickaway County Residents and approved by their school to be absent for the day, are permitted to sign up. Many schools offer this through their government classes and we have coordinated with the local schools on this in the past, but recognize this may be made more difficult with current school precautions.

2.  Local businesses in the past have permitted employees the day off with no adverse effect to the employees vacation or sick time, while some businesses have paid their salary as a reward for their time off to perform this civic duty.

3.  Non-profits have recruited volunteers to work on Election Day with those volunteers then donating their checks to the organization as a way of giving and receiving donations and support.

Precinct Election Officials are paidfor a 2-3 hour training session and their work on Election Day from 5:30 am until the polling location is closed (and cleaned up) after 7:30 pm. If someone is interested, they should be a registered voter of Pickaway County and they can call our office at (740) 474-1100 or by going to our website at https://www.boe.ohio.gov/pickaway/

We will be working at the direction of The Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, in coordination with The Ohio Department of Health, as well as locally with the Pickaway County Health Department to ensure the safety of every Poll Worker and Voter.

Key Dates: October 5th is the deadline to register to vote. October 6th early in-person voting begins and we start mailing ballots to those who requested them. November 3rd is Election Day.