Who can be a poll worker in Madison County primary elections? Here are the rules
Poll workers are the backbone of any election day. They are the people who keep things running smoothly so everyone can exercise their right to vote.
Not just anyone can be a poll worker, though. The role is a paid position, and there are strict rules and regulations.
With the primary elections coming up, Madison County is seeking ways to enforce those rules.
Who can be a poll worker in Mississippi?
In Mississippi, poll workers must be a qualified elector, meaning they must be on their respective county's voting rolls. This rule cuts out former convicts, who are ineligible to vote.
Mississippi's rules explicitly state that disqualifying crimes regarding serving as a poll worker, include "arson, armed robbery, bigamy, bribery, embezzlement, extortion, felony bad check, felony shoplifting, forgery, larceny, murder, obtaining money or goods under false pretenses, perjury, rape, receiving stolen property, robbery, theft, timber larceny, unlawful taking of motor vehicle, statutory rape, carjacking and larceny under lease or rental agreement."
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Approval process for Madison County
In a Madison County Board of Supervisors meeting on Jan. 18, Spence Flatgard, lawyer for the Madison County Elections Commission, addressed the board to make sure everybody was on the same page regarding the poll worker approval process in light of the upcoming primaries.
Flatgard said he and the elections commission had already met with the state's Republican and Democratic parties to plan the upcoming elections. The parties themselves run the primary elections.
Preparation was well underway, he said, but there was one sticking point: the poll workers.
Flatgard told the board that there had been an incident in the previous election cycle where a poll worker had been approved, worked the polls and had been paid. In Madison County, poll workers are paid $200 for working an election day. Later, the commission discovered the poll worker was an ex-felon and had been purged from the voter roll, a clear violation of the state's rules.
For this upcoming election cycle, Flatgard asked the board members whether they wanted him to stick strictly to the rules when hiring poll workers in Madison County.
"For me, yes," said Board of Supervisors President Gerald Steen. "We definitely need to hold to that standard."
In order to carry out adherence, the election commission created a contract requiring the Republican and Democratic parties to provide a list of poll worker candidates to the election commission by Feb. 20. That deadline gives the commission about three weeks to conduct thorough background checks on the poll workers before the March 12 primary elections.
The reasoning behind this contract stems from the desire to make sure every poll worker paid is legally able to be a poll worker.
The elections commission is privy to a database under the Statewide Elections Management System. The Board of Supervisors does not have access to that database. So, when the Republican and Democratic parties present the board with a list of poll workers, the board has no way of knowing if the workers adhere to the state's guidelines.
Thus, when the board pays the poll workers using county treasury funds, a disqualified poll worker could easily slip through the cracks.
As of Feb. 16, Flatgard said the Republican Party had signed the contract, but the Democratic Party had not. The Republican Party had not yet submitted the list of names as of Feb. 16.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Who can be a poll worker in Madison County MS primary elections?
