Ohio considers poll worker draft

Ohio's secretary of state is considering a plan to draft poll workers to supplement an aging work force and shorten the job's long hours, a spokesman said Saturday.

Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, plans to ask the GOP-controlled Legislature to authorize the proposal, Brunner spokesman Jeff Ortega said Saturday. Experts said Ohio would be the first state to use a draft.

Brunner believes the move would lower the average age of poll workers from 72 and ease the workload. Ohio has about 47,000 poll workers _ or just over four per precinct.

Prospective poll workers would be notified by mail that they would be needed for two days of training and would be required to work an eight-hour election day. Currently, poll workers are in precincts for all 13 hours the polls are open.

Poll workers are currently paid up to $95 a day. Details about whether the drafted poll workers would receive the same pay _ or whether there will be penalties for refusing service _ are still being worked out as Brunner's office drafts legislation.

Brunner met with House Speaker Jon Husted on Thursday, one day after bringing the idea up before an enthusiastic Ohio Association of Election Officials at their annual meeting, Ortega said. But the speaker gave the plan a cool reception.

"The first reaction is that we think voting and the democratic process is voluntary and not mandatory," Husted said. "We agree on the goal. But this is not the only way to do it."

Kay Stimson, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Secretaries of State, said Ohio would be the first state to use a draft to recruit poll workers. Currently a county in Nebraska uses the practice.

The Ohio Association of Election Officials is awaiting details before it takes an official stance on the idea, said Gwen Dillingham, the group's president and deputy director of the Cuyahoga County elections board.

"I'm not opposed to anything that helps us recruit poll workers, especially up here," she said.