Ohio voters could be drafted to work the polls on Election Day.This just might rival that other "worst idea since New Coke" from the other day...
Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is expected to ask the legislature to authorize the idea.
Prospective poll wokers would be notified by mail that they would be needed for two days of training on the Friday and Monday before Election Day. They would then be required to work eight hours on election day.
Right now, poll workers work thirteen hours.
Brunner says the move would lower the average age of poll workers and ease the work load.
Voters would be able to get out of the work in some cases, much like jury duty.
House Speaker Jon Husted says while he agrees that adding poll workers is a good idea, this may not be the best way.
Perhaps Matt Dole of LincolnLogsBlog said it best last week:
Our elections system functions inefficiently with voluntary workers… can you imagine what it will be like with people who don’t want to be there?And there is no reason to expect the usual "tricks" perfected in getting out of jury duty to start popping up here, as Matt Naugle at RightAngleBlog says:
My plan is, when I get summons to help on election day, I'll just call them on the phone and start SCREAMING that the voices in my head tell me to do everything I can to disenfranchise voters. Then, if that doesn't work, I'll show up with my large collection of clothing wear from the very fashionable RushLimbaugh.com or RNC catalogs.We really don't want partisans working the polls. If you think you've heard it all on Election Day just wait until the shenanigans that could be pulled if this idea is made law.
Yes, we do have a problem, but a draft is not the answer... Perhaps we ought to consider utilizing high school seniors that are in government class. That makes a heck of a lot more sense than this...
UPDATE: VikingSpirit checks in on the issue. He's not a fan either...
Marks Remarks
Hurley, we discussed this last night. My own county board of elections, along with a couple of other Southern Ohio counties, already has a proposal in place whereas they would like Election Day to be declared a work and school holiday in Ohio, then senior students from Government classes would help work the polls to ease the burden on older workers. It would also probably increase voter participation as well. My county's board of elections has been using seniors from government classes to help work the polls and the kids have loved it. Why not go with this idea instead of a draft?
Why are Democrats always shoving crap down people's throats with stupid ideas like this? I mean, I always thought Democrats were the party of choice. You could choose to work the polls or not to. You could choose to support some initiative or not to. However, we all know the truth. The only thing the Dems and Libs are pro choice on is the decision to murder babies. Yep, you can choose to kill that unborn child, but when he/she is school age, you can't choose to send them to a more effective school. Heck no!
The thing is, Dems like this stuff, with drafts and forcing people to do things. Why? Because it inflames feelings and gets more people disgruntled with the process. When that happens, you get less participation. And, despite all their talking of "get out the vote", dems love when less people stay informed and participate, because then it resembles what they really want, a dictatorship of so-called experts.
