By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
The 2024 general election has come and gone. The results have been tabulated.
While the ballot featured several races — some local, some state and a few federal — there were thousands of civic-minded volunteers that helped democracy run as smoothly as it can: the largely overlooked poll workers.
According to Pew Research, roughly 644,000 people volunteered as poll workers in the 2022 election and Kentucky has an average of 5 to 7 workers per polling place. For context, Barren County currently has nine polling locations with some, like the Barren County High School Gymnasium, having well more than the state average.
Barren County Clerk Helena Chase Birdwell said she had no issue filling the needed allotment of poll workers, but has noticed it is becoming harder to get registered Democrats compared to their Republican counterparts and, until the passage of Kentucky House Bill 574 in 2021, registered Independents were ineligible from volunteering.
A look at the registration numbers on the Kentucky Board of Elections website shows that since 2019 — the last year registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans — the number of Democrats has decreased from 15,604 to the current 12,738 and, during the same time frame, Independents have increased by almost 500 voters.
Republican registration is up as well going from 14,114 in 2019 to the current 17,029
Birdwell said people have changed their party affiliations to the point that they have a waiting list of available Republican poll workers.
Birdwell encouraged Democrats to volunteer to be poll workers, or “Precinct Election Officers” as they are referred to on the Kentucky State Board of Elections, by getting in touch with her office.
According to the Board of Elections, there are four qualifications a person must meet in order to be a worker, which includes not being a candidate and being a registered voter.
