- Luke Kasson is a 27-year-old
poll worker from Columbus, Ohio. - He's also a registered nurse at a local hospital and works in the ICU there; on election day, he'll be wearing the same type of PPE that he does at the hospital.
- Kasson first became a poll worker two elections ago, and will be doing it again this year.
- While he's excited about the youth turnout, and enjoys being a poll worker, he's concerned that people will get tense or try to poll watch.
- Here's his story, as told to reporter Juliana Kaplan.
I got into being a poll worker two elections ago, but the last one got canceled by COVID.
Kids in my age group don't exactly have the best turnout. I think that's been evident in years past and I always felt driven to be part of the change. So a year ago I got involved and became a poll worker, and had a blast with it, really.
When I got involved the first time, it was just for a small special election for some random stuff. There were like three things on the ballot, and no big push for poll workers. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into.
I seemed like I was the youngest one there by at least 30 years. Or, more simply put, I was the only one that was there that wasn't retired. So that's always really stuck with me — it was all older folks that retired that had a lot of fun with it.
All those individuals that I worked with, that organized all of this stuff, they're all in the highest risk group for COVID.
So I thought it was really awesome to see the difference between back then and now, because now it's all these young kids my age signing up to be poll workers.
There's been this insane push for people to become poll workers.
It was actually even almost difficult to get reinvolved in being a poll worker. Every year they call it applying, but anyone that applies to the job [gets it].
But so many people have applied that they're actually having trouble getting through all the applicants. So I had to do a lot of follow-up.
I'm not aware of what social distancing or anything they're putting in place at the precinct.
I don't really think it's going to change that much. I think it's pretty much going to be, you go to the precinct, you're expected to socially distance, but I'm curious to see how it is myself.
I work in an ICU.
I'm going to be wearing PPE while I'm there — the same PPE that I wear in the hospital.
I'm a machine judge. That's what I did for the last election and that's what I'll do for this one.
In Ohio we have the electric casting booths that spit out a paper ballot; they pretty much print out a paper ballot that you can cast yourself. I stand by all the machines, and show people how to use the machine, and get them set up so they can start voting on the machines themselves. If they have any questions about how the machines work, I answer.
It's definitely the job you're standing the most for. I don't think it's the most desirable job they hand out, but it's the most face-to-face job that they hand out, and I have a lot of fun with it. You get yelled at a lot too, but it's okay. Everyone's very tense on election day.
Maybe people will start realizing we're just volunteers. There's absolutely no difference between you and me; as long as you're an American citizen, you can just become a poll worker. I think people think that this is like my full-time job or I organized all of this or whatever, but you have an hour of training and show up and you just start working.
I'll be honest. I'm nervous about this year.
I'm not nervous about COVID. I've accepted that it's a high-risk situation, but I know it is what it is. I've decided to do this.
It's a very tense election. There's a lot of wild voices, and a lot of distrust with the process, I think on probably both sides of the aisle.
I just think that people are going to be very impatient.
I'm worried; there's some mention of poll watchers, in an encouragement for people to go out and do that. I'm worried that people are going to try to do that — but that's not something you can just go out and do.
I'm worried. I don't know. It's going to be interesting.
Voting's important, and we need more young people to do it.
All people that work for the polls shouldn't be older individuals.
Young kids need to get out there — don't just vote: get involved, become a responsible citizen.