Counties across Texas are facing poll worker shortages ahead of election

TAYLOR COUNTY, Texas — This midterm election has huge implications on the future of Texas with races for Governor and Attorney General on the line but counties all over the state are seeing a shortage of poll workers including right here in the Big Country. That’s according to Taylor County Elections Administrator Freda Regan.

“It’s not just our county, in speaking with to other counties and other election officials, they are struggling also. When COVID hit, it also affected our poll worker situation because a lot of our poll workers are typically 65 or older. So when, COVID hit a lot of them said that they can’t do it this time because of their concerns.”

With a lack of poll workers, polling places will struggle to handle the large turnout of voters expected in this election including Taylor County, which is still in need of poll workers for election night on November 8th.

They have an application on their website, but Ragan revealed to us that they need more help this election because of the county’s new voting machines

“We do have a new voting system. We are now mandated to utilize a paper based system to basically an auditable voting system. So because of us going to the paper based system and that new procedure, we felt the need to beef up our locations, if you will, and make sure that we had ample poll workers on hand to assist those voters with the process and the extra steps.”

Early voting continues until November 4th, and Ragan said there is still time for people to volunteer to work the polls if they submit the application on their website.

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