Resources

This resource, published by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, provides election officials with practical ways to improve poll worker retention.

The EAC Clearinghouse Resources in Poll Workers are designed to help election officials recruit, train, and retain temporary or seasonal election workers. Topics include fostering long-term commitment, adult learning, and managing challenging interactions, among others.

The EAC Learning Lab is the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s online, on-demand training platform for state and local election officials. Training modules, including poll worker modules, are free and focus on various election administration topics such as accessibility, communication, and voting systems, among others.

This June 2023 report outlines best practices for improving poll worker recruitment. It identifies barriers such as overly restrictive residency and age requirements, heavy reliance on political parties for hiring, and insufficient compensation and training standards. The report recommends concrete reforms to help election administrators build a more diverse and sufficient poll worker workforce.

This report highlights key factors influencing poll worker recruitment and retention, including poll worker pay, implementation of partisan balance requirements, and harassment. It also offers potential strategies legislators can use to improvement address these factors and improvement poll worker recruitment and retention.

This resource provides strategies for election officials for recruiting and retaining election workers. It features direct examples from local jurisdicitions that have had success implementing these strategies.

This article, written during the COVID-19 pandemic, discusses the overarching trend of poll worker shortages in U.S. elections. Authors identify potential strategies to address shortages, rooted in the practices of state and local election officials. While the pandemic serves as the backdrop for this article, its recommendations remain relevant to elections today.

This course series connects election officials to frameworks, strategies, resources, and best practices related to designing and administering poll worker programs. This series is free and consists of four courses focused specifically on recruiting, training, managing and retaining poll workers.

This resource provides an overview of state poll worker policies, highlighting the variance between states and need for unique approach to designing and implementing poll worker programs. Statutory references are provided for state laws related to poll worker qualifications, youth poll worker programs, residency requirements, and partisan distribution.

This resource provides tips and guidance for election officials to design clear, simple, easy to use, and easy to understand instructional materials for poll workers.

This training slide presentation and accompanying guide are intended to help election officials improve their training materials and practices for poll workers who assist voters with disabilities using accessible voting systems. The training ensures that poll workers know the legal rules for disability voting rights in the polling place and includes guidance for helping voters while preserving their independence and privacy.