Nebraska poll workers must represent different parties. Sometimes they get drafted

The mail arrives at the Lancaster County Election Commission. Volunteers gather around a table, checking for signatures and sorting yellow ballots. Overseeing it all is election commissioner Todd Wiltgen.

“These folks are election workers,” Wiltgen said. “They are of differing (political) parties. You can differentiate between their parties based on the color of their lanyards: red is Republican, blue is Democrat, and black is non-partisan.”

He holds out his own red lanyard by way of demonstration. County election offices have to follow a range of rules on Election Day. One of those is staffing each polling site with people from multiple political parties. There’s quite a bit of planning to ensure the 1,000-plus sites open on Election Day meet legal requirements.

Wiltgen walked from the mail room to the front desk where Lincoln residents request their ballots. He showed where staff scan ballots to ensure everything is where it should be. And along the way, staff of every lanyard color, blue, red, black, and green for the Legal Marijuana Now party, guide the ballots through several rounds of checks.

“We’re fortunate that we have a lot of civic-minded neighbors who are willing to step forward and work on election day,” Wiltgen said.

Each neighbor of a different color represents a larger picture. Election clerks and commissioners across Nebraska must ensure that there is never a monopoly of one party at a precinct. State law dictates that, at election sites, the poll workers must equally represent different parties.

“Well first of all, it does not require equal representation,” Danielle Jensen, Douglas County’s election commissioner. “It requires a diversity of representation.”

Jensen has been on the job since January. Like Lancaster County, Douglas County’s Democrats have a slight majority over Republicans. Jensen explained what happens when the county doesn’t have enough Republicans to go around at all the precincts.

“We can use Democrats and Republicans but you can also have a Democrat and a non-partisan at the front,” Jensen said. Non-partisan, independent or Legal Marijuana Now workers can act like wild cards to offset any shortages from one or the other major party.

To get that diversity in poll workers on election days, Douglas County must draft its poll workers. It’s been relying on that process off and on since the 1950s. Jensen said her staff keeps a running list of past volunteers. Every two years, when that volunteer list is exhausted, they randomly pull from the population to fill in the party gaps in the county’s 234 polling sites.

“We just have a need for so many,” Jensen said. “We do get volunteers, but it’s not enough to cover all of the polling sites.”

Anyone who is registered to vote can be drafted to work at a poll site, just like with jury duty. Draftees must serve in four elections over two years, and Jensen said many come back as volunteers once they’ve served their term.

While turnout varies from election to election, Jensen said on average, 60% of Douglas County’s poll workers are volunteers and 40% are drafted. According to Census data, almost 600,000 people live in Douglas County. But getting diverse poll workers can be a problem in rural counties, too. April Warren can attest to that.

“Yes there was one year that I did have some problems,” Warren said. “I actually did not have equal representation (that year).”

Warren is Blaine County’s clerk of the district court. She reported to the secretary of state the one year she did not have diverse party representation in her poll workers and was told to document why.

“We have very few people that align with the Democratic party in our little county,” Warren said. She added with a laugh, “We have very few people anyway.”

Fewer than 500 people live in Blaine County.

“We pretty much know almost everyone who lives in our county, and many times, we’re on a first-name basis,” Warren said.

While there is only one precinct that needs a staff of five on election day, Warren must keep up her own spreadsheet of potential workers. She said while most of the voters are Republicans, she doesn’t need to draft. Warren just calls up people she knows of differing parties and asks them to help out. Although, even then, sometimes people say they can’t.

“We’ve had a person get bucked off of a horse,” Warren said. “We’ve had a person come down with chicken pox, which is very unusual.”

Hall County also has all the poll workers it needs for party diversity, but staff have still considered implementing a draft. Election Commissioner Tracy Overstreet said this is not because of political party representation, but because of age.

“The older generation has really carried the load for decades in being poll workers and working those poll sites,” Overstreet said. “When a person reaches voting age, they really need to take a seat at the table.”

Overstreet’s slate of poll workers is aging, and soon, she said younger people will have to step in.

“That diversity across parties, across all these other criteria that we look at, are super important,” Overstreet said. “I hope that people will step up and become part of the process. Because democracy requires participation. It’s built on participation.”

Each election commissioner said that working at poll sites benefits everyone who takes part, whether they’re drafted or not, if only so they can learn how the voting process works.

“The tasks for election duties, they’re under a different microscope than they were a few years ago,” Overstreet said. “The whole concept really in election integrity and security is watching out for one another and making sure things are being followed properly.”

Wiltgen in Lancaster County emphasized the many rules poll workers must follow to protect voters’ ballots, adding that having representatives from multiple parties helps guarantee election integrity.

“It’s just checks and balances,” Wiltgen said. “It’s very indicative of our system of government. Trust but verify to make sure that the elections are done in a safe and secure manner.”