Advocates and administrators push for more election staff, training and pay; Youth Do Vote proposes student clerk expansion

Speakers across the political spectrum told the Elections Commission that staffing shortages and insufficient training worsened operational strains during recent elections and that pay and certification should be improved.

"Election workers are the foundation of successful elections," said Kathy Vale, a precinct and advisory-committee member, noting Bexar County has more than 1,300,000 registered voters and roughly 84,000 voters in suspense. Vale recommended a minimum $3-per-hour increase for all election-worker positions and urged the commission to publish measurable performance metrics for voter-registration processing and mail-ballot tracking.

Julia Grizzard of Youth Do Vote described a student election-clerk recruitment program that placed 68 high school students and 14 college students in recent election cycles and asked the commission to help scale that pipeline for staffing and technology assistance at polling sites. Elections Administrator Michelle Carew said the office is expanding training: she expects about 95% of staff to be state-certified by the end of the summer and to pursue national certification thereafter. Carew also said she has submitted budget requests for additional full-time employees to reduce reliance on temporary workers who are performing much of the manual backlog work.

Commissioners and community groups offered to help with recruitment and training partnerships, and several commissioners said they will review salaries as the county's budget season begins.