Students Find a Way to Engage in Election Through Poll Working

In the face of the historic presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and now President-elect Donald Trump, students found ways to become involved by serving as election judges via the College Student Judge Program.

The program, operated by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, offers college students the opportunity to register to be an election judge, even if they aren’t a permanent resident of Cook County, by registering with the address of their dorm or apartment. 

Election judges help manage the polling place they’re assigned to and look after equipment on the day of the election, including setting up beforehand, helping voters through the process and shutting everything down at the end of the night. The goal is to have a relatively even number of Democrat and Republican election judges in each cohort, according to a document from the CBEC. 

Maggie Gonzalez, a third-year majoring in math, environmental studies and statistics, said she’s been an election judge since she became involved in the high school equivalent of the college student judge program as a third-year in high school. She said the presidential contest was her sixth election in Chicago. 

In order to qualify for the college program, students must attend a university in Cook County, be able to read, speak and write English, have a minimum 3.0 GPA and be able to complete a training session ahead of voting day, according to the CBEC website. 

Ethan Jackson, a third-year political science major, said he’s been working the polls since a teacher in his second-year of high school encouraged him and his classmates to sign up. He spent this year working as an election coordinator, which is the position at each voting location responsible for managing the election judges. 

Jackson said he thinks having young people working in the polls is important to their functionality. He said most poll workers are over the age of 65. 

“As these people get older, it becomes harder for them to do a lot of the tasks,” Jackson said. “As the technology keeps updating, it’s harder for them to troubleshoot and keep up with the changes of procedure. So by introducing a new generation of workers to the polling process — to the election process — it can make it a lot easier and speed along the whole process for voters.”

Gonzalez said she enjoys the work because it gives her the chance to be a part of an important process within democracy. 

“I am a really big believer in the power of voting,” Gonzalez said. “I want to be a participant in making sure that everybody gets a good voting experience and has the right to vote however they want to.”

Raven Walters, a fourth-year multimedia journalism major, said she became interested in being an election judge when one of her sorority sisters mentioned it and encouraged others to join. 

Walters said the application process was incredibly simple, and the program only required one training session, which was downtown at Block Thirty Seven and lasted about four hours. 

Jackson said working at the polls has given him a better understanding of what happens behind the scenes on election day. 

“I do like seeing how foolproof the process is,” Jackson said. “It taught me a lot about how secure our election process is in this country.”

Gonzalez said she always enjoys connecting with community members as an election judge and plans to continue to sign up well into the future, including after she’s graduated. 

The day for election workers began at 5 a.m. and concluded after the polls closed at 7 p.m., officially ending whenever all the equipment had been put away and other side tasks had been completed, according to Walters.

Jackson said his favorite part of working the polls is the connections he builds with community members and getting to see everyone take advantage of their voting rights as Americans. 

“I enjoy meeting all the voters, seeing their enthusiasm,” Jackson said. It’s always exciting when someone comes off the tabulator, which is where you turn in your vote, and they turn around, they get their sticker and hand you their phone and say, ‘Can you take my picture? I I want to get my picture taken to celebrate voting.’ So between that and the first-time voters that you encounter, it really is a joyous thing.”

Walters said some of her favorite parts of the day were getting to interact with community members and meeting people from outside of the university. 

“I feel like it’s important just to kind of understand your community, and I feel like I got to connect with Rogers Park on a deeper level than I ever had before, despite the fact that I live here,” Walters said. “I just think it’s such a great way to get involved with the voting system and feel like you’re making a difference for, I guess, the country or the state.”

Gonzalez said while sometimes elections can feel big, and people feel like their vote doesn’t matter, she hopes she can be a part of making every vote count. 

“I can’t necessarily have the biggest impact on the overall election,” Gonzalez said. “But when I work the polls, it gives me a small sense of being able to make sure that everyone gets the right to vote, which to me helps me feel like something that’s really out of my control is just a little bit more in my control.”

As a Spanish translator, Gonzalez said she feels compelled to get involved as a resource for Spanish-speaking voters who might not otherwise be able to cast their ballot. 

Gonzalez said she thinks voting is a privilege, and she wants to help more people recognize it, especially with how high the stakes are in politics right now. 

“I guess poll workers are there to just make that experience as easy and joyful as possible for people,” Gonzalez said. “We’re trying to make it quick. We’re trying to make it so that all the workers are being really friendly, so that people want to vote and people don’t find it to be a burden. They find it to be more of like, where they like, realize how much of a privilege it is to be able to vote and really enjoy doing that.”

Anyone interested in applying to be an election judge through the college program or otherwise can visit the CBEC website for more information.