I am a Georgia poll worker. Republicans’ new rules are making me lose sleep

I’m a poll worker in metro Atlanta, and I’m already twitchy about the election.

The Georgia State Elections Board has gone partisan, now comprised mostly of (unelected) election deniers from 2020. Their job is to set rules for poll workers and elections, and they’ve done it with gusto: each year layering on newer, more complicated rules, some of which conflict with their older, more antiquated rules. But last month they outdid themselves. The Republican-controlled board’s newest rule allows county officials to delay certification if poll workers comply imperfectly with their long list of new and old rules—irregularities they can call “malfeasant.” And if that’s not intimidating enough, the Board also ruled that poll watchers, those watchdogs volunteering from both the Right and the Left, should have closer physical access—even though most have had only two hours of training, even though most are not familiar enough with protocol to know what “normal” is supposed to look like. 

Here’s what most people forget. We poll workers are not career professionals. The vast army of Georgia poll workers report for duty only about three days a year and get paid about $7.25 an hour. Every time we come in, the rules have changed, so we train for eight hours to learn the new protocols. Election day itself, including set-up and break-down, starts at 5:30 am and ends at 9:00 pm, two hours later if you’re a manager delivering the ballots to the regional office. Most of us are retired, and many are elderly (read: not tech-forward). The main reason most of us do it is deliciously quaint: we want our state to have smooth and viable elections.

And yet. Things go wrong—all the time.

Say the school maintenance man oversleeps and doesn’t unlock the doors of the polling place in time for set-up. Say the electricity goes out the morning of the election. Say the Georgia legislature reshuffles the polling locations in urban areas, enough so that voters end up confused and angry. Say that a nefarious organization sends imposter letters “informing” voters that their precinct has moved to a bogus location. Say that you can’t set up on time because the gymnasium needs cleaning (Don’t ask. It involves third graders, cupcakes, and thousands of dollars’ worth of voting machines.) Say that two precincts have similar names, and a harried programmer at the under-staffed, over-worked elections office mis-programs the software (Is Precinct A supposed to be absorbed into Precinct B, or is it the other way around?) Say this mistake results in every single one of your 7 a.m voters being mis-categorized as “out of precinct.” Say that a surprise pandemic breaks out, and your team has to scramble to protect elderly workers and voters. And my favorite: say that ten Dominion voting machines go missing the evening before the election. (You later find them in the closet where the school keeps cafeteria tables. My theory: teachers on Monday morning were so focused on the fifth grade graduation parade—imagine parents and grandparents and little girls twirling in white dresses—that one of them said, “What are all these big old machines doing on my parade route? Get them out of here.” To the closet they went, and by Monday afternoon were quite forgotten.)

All of these have happened in my precinct in the last five years. My point: irregularities occur all the time. 

And poll workers are not perfect. One of them puts on a sweater and inadvertently obscures her name tag (not allowed). Another shows a new person how to work the check-in station (not allowed). Another tells a nonprofit they can set up their food hand-outs inside the building so as to stay out of the rain (not allowed). And at some point during the 15 hour work day, all of you find yourself accidentally socializing with one another (also not allowed). Likewise, the clerks are socializing with the voters (you guessed it: not allowed), which, worst case, is akin to being smothered in grandmas. (“Baby, what’s that your t-shirt says? Is that some kind of barbecue, baby? Or does that have to do with that soccer team? Because my son, he goes to every game.”) 

And that doesn’t even include the host of honest mistakes that can and do occur filling out the mountains of punctilious paperwork after a 16-hour day. 

And yes, those poll watchers are there the whole time, bored cross-eyed, eager to clock anything they can call an irregularity. That, after all, is their job.

I don’t know how to interpret the new Georgia law or what exactly it means by “irregularity” or “malfeasance.” I’m guessing no one does. But I do know this: given the constant shuffling of precincts in urban areas, anyone who looks hard enough can and will find precincts with imperfect adherence to protocol. If the certifying board has the power to decide which of these transgressions should count as “malfeasance,” God help us all.

If county officials hold up results for certain precincts, it’s likely to erode confidence, create instability, and tie up results in court. Worst case scenario: Georgia results cannot be certified by the December 11 federal deadline, the state’s voters are disenfranchised, and our 16 electoral votes cannot be counted for either side.

And me, I’ll still be twitching.

Editor's Note: This article is part of U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on Sept. 15, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how democracy works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org.