About 6 weeks ago I volunteered to be a poll worker in Va for the first time. The local election board has still not provided online training or any reading material. I have a ton of questions, particularly in view of Republican antics in other states and the obvious tRumpiness of our current governor. How close to voters are partisan ‘poll watchers’ allowed to go? Can they open carry weapons at the polls during voting? (Open carry is legal in Va.) How about afterwards, as they view ballots being processed? Is there a local special emergency response number if intimidation occurs? How about a national one if the local authorities are ‘unconcerned’? Lots of questions. No answers that I have seen. Anybody have experience here?
What do you mean by “local election board”? The office of the county Clerk & Recorder? If not, they might have some information. And your local party HQ should have some information as well.
I do not know the legal terms of art. I refer to the county-level election officials who have some limited autonomy in fact if not in law. Va ranges from very red to very blue. Everyone should know this stuff about their own locality. I for one do not.
I’m an election judge here in Maryland but I don’t think I’ll be able to help much since election laws differ by state.
Here poll watchers have very strict limitations and must obtain proper authorization beforehand. They can stand directly behind me as I check in voters but they are not allowed to speak to me; any questions they might have must be directed to one of the chief judges. They also are not allowed to speak to voters.
No one except on-duty law enforcement officers are allowed to enter the voting room strapped. Ymmv.
I believe that authorized observers are allowed to watch the counting processes as well but, again, their actions are tightly restricted.
We had pretty good training from our county board. I think our state, like most others, take election processes very seriously. But it’s completely fair to note that my direct experience is limited to my locale.
My wife has done this in New York. Training consisted of hours of classroom instruction and a huge manual, because there are a million tiny things to know, none of them general knowledge.
If your election board does not provide adequate training, tell them you are not going anywhere near a polling place. Doing so without training is irresponsible. In the real, non-newspaper-headline world, none of the answers you’ll need to know will involve open carry.
Notes from early voting in Maryland:
Just one real incident to date, the Chairwoman of the county Republican Central Committee, pitched a major bitch at one of our early voting locations about using traffic cones instead of chalk to delineate the non-electioneering zone. (We don’t use chalk because it washes away) She wouldn’t take no for an answer, however, refused to leave the polling area when asked by the chief judges and was eventually arrested for her disruption.
She then escalated the insanity by claiming to the press that she is being denied the right to vote because she “will be arrested if she returns to a polling place.” None of this is true.
Nothing on my immediate front, just a few voters who got huffy because we didn’t ask for personal ID and one blustery fellow who claimed that he could have voted for his deceased parents and “you’d never know.” Very confident in his ignorance.
Update from my Va experience: Just got the instructional video from the poll officials. Very brief and chatty without much detail at all. No discussion of rules, security, etc, to speak of. Not at all what I expected.
I have been voting in VA for decades and it has always worked smoothly- I guess this will ultimately become clear. More later.