Almost one month from Election Day, Dallas County has only about half of 3,000 poll workers it needs to run the polls.
Election officials and political party heads are not overly concerned, saying that many people register at the last minute. But Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said at Tuesday’s regular county commissioners’ meeting that he is worried.
“That makes me a little nervous,” he said.
The Dallas County Elections Department Administrator Michael Scarpello said the number of confirmed poll workers is continually changing.
In a presentation to the Dallas County Commissioners Court on Tuesday, Scarpello said the county needs 3,000 poll workers for the Nov. 8 election, but only about 1,565 workers have been confirmed to work the election.
Poll workers are selected by political parties and approved by the Commissioners Court. The party that won countywide in the most recent gubernatorial race — Democrats in Dallas County — gets a slight majority of poll workers.
Dallas County Democratic Party Chair Kristy Noble provided a statement that the party has 27 poll judge and 17 alternate poll judge positions left to fill, and these vacancies are being filled rapidly.
“We are five weeks out from Election Day and we are in a good position to have every Democratic judge and clerk opening filled for Nov. 8th,” the statement said. “We are confident that we will have the election workers needed to have a free, fair, and accessible election.”
Republican National Committee’s Dallas County Chair Jennifer Stoddard Hajdu told The Dallas Morning News that she also feels good about the midterm elections and has over 1,030 poll workers who have already been trained or are scheduled to train.
“We are getting very close,” she said. “I think we are ahead of the game. We’re anticipating a great turnout, and this is the most efficient process we’ve had so far since I’ve come into it.”
If the political parties fail to recruit enough poll workers, Scarpello told The News there is a reserve pool.
Dallas County commissioners have been watching the management of the midterm election closely after approving millions of dollars for restructuring. Scarpello has been tasked with addressing previous election issues including long waiting lines at polls, payroll concerns and disparity complaints between residents in the north and south of the county.
Voting centers
Dallas County had 469 approved voting centers, but organizations that control 13 of the sites have decided not to renew agreements with the elections department for this November. In Dallas County, voters can go to any voting center to cast their ballot.
Scarpello told commissioners that staff are working to find replacements for at least some of those 13 locations by the end of the week.
“Sometimes there’s a place directly across the street, and sometimes there might be a place a mile away. If it’s a mile away, we’re looking a lot harder,” he said.
Commissioner John Wiley Price said commissioners should have been made aware of disappearing voting centers in their districts.
“That’s a problem, that we are only hearing about this 30 days out,” he told Scarpello from the dais.
Rowlett City Hall, which is in Price’s district, will not be a voting center this year. Mayor Blake Margolis told The News that it does not provide the necessary parking spaces and interior capacity that allows for an Election Day crowd. The maximum capacity for the City Hall Annex Conference Room is 30 people, and the hallway can hold up to 20 additional people.
“We are able to accommodate early voting in this location due to the lengthened schedule and steady flow of voters, however the rush of Election Day voters at one time presents a significant challenge,” a letter from the city to the county elections department said.
It is unclear where the replacement voting center will be located. Margolis pointed out that the elections department currently uses Coyle Middle School across the street from city hall as a voting center.
While some school districts have been concerned about safety surrounding Election Day following the Uvalde shooting, Scarpello said all the schools asked to host polling sites have agreed to participate.
He said this amount of turnover in voting centers is standard, saying that sometimes a church doesn’t have full-time staff for the day or a location is under construction.
Stoddard Hajdu said she is not worried about there being 13 fewer locations to cast ballots because none of them were large voting centers like the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center.
“I frankly think we could decrease the voting centers by at least 25 percent and not skip a beat,” she said.
In elections earlier this year, some poll workers struggled to get their paychecks. Pay was recorded on a timesheet and then calculated manually.
Scarpello previously told The News that timesheets would be included in a phone app for Election Day workers, but plans have been postponed indefinitely by the county auditor, he told commissioners on Tuesday. Instead, poll workers will record their time worked on a spreadsheet.
Commissioner Theresa Daniel asked Scarpello to keep the court apprised of any payroll concerns.
“Let us know so we can address those issues. We don’t want a repeat of past elections,” she said.
Those interested in becoming a poll worker can sign up on Dallas County’s election website.
CORRECTION, 10 a.m., Oct. 5, 2022: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Rowlett Mayor Blake Margolis recommended using Coyle Middle School as an additional polling location. The school is already a polling location.
