Election Operations Aren’t Necessarily The Issue, It’s Finding All The Judges Needed To Work Them

When Harris County election officials decided to host the county’s first-ever joint primary, they were tasked with staffing the 545 Election Day vote centers with two presiding judges: one Democratic and one Republican.

According to Rosio Torres-Segura, the administrator of communications for Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth’s office, finding these 1,090 judges from either party was a significant challenge, and conducting a joint primary with the assistance of the Harris County Democratic and Republican party chairs was the only way to accomplish this.

If the county would have had to have separate vote centers for Democratic and Republican voters, it would have been required to have 2,180 election judges due to a recent legislative change. As it was, election officials struggled to get 1,090 judges to serve even by combining the polling locations.

During the March 5 primary, more than 350 election day judges declined to work after being assigned to serve and placed. Of the 350, about 200 declined to work within the last week before Election Day. This does not include the thousands of judges the department attempted to contact but were unwilling or unavailable to work.

The same issue occurred during last year’s November general election when roughly 800 to 900 election judges declined to work after being assigned.

Torres-Segura said efforts for staffing election workers are already underway for November. At a recent press conference, Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth announced that the department plans to do a campaign ahead of this year’s general election to generate interest in the community in helping out with election operations.

“As we approach November, I can say this is a nationwide concern — is having enough election workers,” Hudspeth said. “Those willing to do this civic duty on Election Day.”

Hudspeth added that many of Harris County’s election workers were aging out of being able to serve in these roles. The department did not have current data on the average age of election workers for the March 5 primary, but per past data, most of the individuals working in vote centers in recent years were 65 and older.

The county clerk said that without election workers—more than 7,000 worked this Election Day—Harris County elections would not be able to operate.

“The pay is very low for the hours and demands,” said Nancy Sims, a political science lecturer at the University of Houston. “It’s not an easy job. I think that has affected people’s willingness to work in elections. It is a great job for someone who is retired. That’s why you have a lot of older people doing poll work because of that.”

The county does allow high school students who are 16 or older to serve as “student election workers” at vote centers during early voting and Election Day to try to reach out to younger residents interested in election operations.

These students have to be enrolled in a private or public high school or home school and have the consent of their principal or an adult (parent or legal guardian) in charge of their homeschooling and their parent or guardian to serve.

At most, two student election clerks can serve at a vote center, except when Harris County operates countywide vote centers where four can serve at once at one location.

These students serve as election clerks and, similar to their adult counterparts, work to organize vote centers before polls open, ensure that qualified voters are permitted to vote, check-in and process votes, distribute ballots to registered voters, provide assistance to voters, maintain order in vote centers, obtain results after the polls are closed and help close up vote centers under the supervision of a judge.

The work qualifies as an excused absence from school, and students receive $17 an hour—as all election clerks do—for their services.

According to Torres-Segura, the county also pays alternative judges $17 an hour—judges who fill in if early vote or Election day judges fail to show up at a vote center—and $20 an hour for presiding judges, including a $80 stipend on election days.

Election worker training requirements can vary depending on election type. Usually, training consists of a mandatory in-person classes. This includes three hours of hands-on instruction about equipment, forms, procedures and laws and an hour-long module-based course about the Americans with Disabilities guidelines and accessibility at vote centers.

After training, election workers take a test, which they must pass with at least 80 percent. During the March 5 primary election cycle, the department hosted 106 in-person training sessions and 11 virtual trainings or “refresher courses” for more than 7,000 Election Day workers.

If election workers took the in-person training in November or December, they were only required to take this virtual course and score an 80 percent or higher on the exam. They are paid for training during the mandatory in-person courses only. If additional assistance, training or one-on-one help is needed, election workers can contact the department’s training team.

In this most recent election, judges who trained in-person during the November or December 2023 were required to take an online Zoom refresher course to review ePollBook updates and primary election-specific details.

“One of the things that Harris County has not figured out yet is how to adequately staff and run Election Day vote centers,” said Mark Jones, a Rice University political science fellow professor. The best remedy is simply increasing the amount they pay.”

“The more you increase pay, the more reliable you are going to have in terms of workers, the higher quality and the more serious they are going to take it,” he added. “ [The Harris County] Commissioners Court can come up with that money.”

Jones said this was especially the case with younger workers, who are likely looking for wages comparable to what they would get if they were working.

“You’re not going to get the volunteer-istic workers who don’t care about the money and are doing it out of civic pride like in the past. The more you pay someone the more you can actually expect in terms of training and competency,” he said. “You’re more able to — if workers don’t come to training sessions or are unreliable — fire them because you have a greater level of labor supply.”

According to Torres-Segura, newer workers tend to have more challenges on election days, usually involving specific procedures or requirements, but their advantage is their ability to pick legal and procedural changes quicker.

She said it can take years of experience to understand all of the components of election processes, procedures and laws — especially when they are subject to change by the Texas Legislature.

Alongside training, the department has a help desk devoted to election workers during early voting and election days to support election workers’ calls at vote centers.

Election field technicians are also assigned to specific vote centers and can be dispatched if assistance at a vote center is needed or supplies are requested.