Poll workers, early voting

Church today.

The august primary election is an opportunity to vote in federal, state, county and municipal races.

And while early voting starts tomorrow in hamilton county, the covid-19 pandemic is still putting up a challenge to the process.

Preparations for early voting are going on at the polling place in the hamilton county elections office.

It's a process that includes making the environment safe from the coronavirus.

Hamilton county administrator of elections kerry steelman: "the first thing voters will notice when the arrive at a polling place are the 6 foot spacing."

Kerry steelman is the administrator of elections in hamilton county.

He tells me that during any given election they have around 900 poll workers for early voting and election day.

But because of the pandemic, this time has been different.

Hamilton county administrator of elections kerry steelman: "to be prepared for instances where a, a poll worker may not show up either they're sick or have an emergency situation we always have a bank of poll workers that we can draw from, but certainly the covid-19 pandemic is making that increasing difficult as more and more of our veteran, poll workers are opting not to work."

He says the average poll worker age is 70 years old.

That puts several poll workers into the age range that can be considered high risk for severe illness.

Hamilton county administrator of elections kerry steelman: "certainly that is one reason we're seeing some of our numbers fall off with our poll workers, but the vast majority are recognizing the extraordinary measures that we're taking to provide them a safe environment and are continuing to express a willingness to work."

Steelman says they're always looking for poll workers and encourages those considering to become one to think objectively.

There's really no guarantee you'll stay safe just about anywhere you go, but he says they are making efforts to mitigate the spread.

Hamilton county administrator of elections kerry steelman: "massive amounts of personal protective equipment that we have including but not limited to face masks and face shields to hand sanitizer to sanitizing equipment that we'll be using to clean the faculty through out the day we are purchasing disposable pens and ballot secrecy folders so they'll only be touched by one voter before they are disposed of."

One thing to note is that though hamilton county is under a mask mandate, polls are an exception.

So while workers will be taking protective measures, voters are not required to wear a mask in order to vote.

Early voting and mask wearing are encouraged.

We have information on becoming a poll worker and info on early voting, on our website, wdef-dot-com.