Shelby County Election Commission chairman: poll workers are essential to democracy | Opinion

One of our most cherished rights as Americans and one that clearly defines the essence of democracy is our right to vote. We vote on taxation to fund services. We vote for people to represent us on legislative bodies. We vote for candidates to lead our governmental agencies.

We are asked to vote on how and to what extent government should spend our tax dollars. The duty we have to express ourselves through the vote carries a heavy responsibility to study issues and evaluate candidates who can best carry out our electoral mandates.

Equally as important as your vote is government’s duty to ensure the vote is accurately counted and safeguarded.

In Shelby County this duty is the responsibility of the Shelby County Election Commission. The commission is an entity of state government with five commissioners approved by the State Election Commission and funded by the Shelby County government.

The commission is bipartisan with the majority membership determined by the majority party in the state legislature. In Tennessee county election commissions have three republicans and two democrats serving two year terms.

Why you should volunteer

A county as large as Shelby requires financial support, workers, several voting locations and a high level of security to guarantee your vote is correctly counted. Your county election commission works full time throughout the year to make sure you have the opportunity to express your preference when the time comes to cast your vote.

This year presents challenges because of the multitude of political offices to be filled. The work to be done requires the efforts of many people to step up and offer their services to maintain and secure the election sites while making sure that both democrats and republicans are represented in the workforce.

To provide this assurance we need more citizens from both political parties to assist in staffing the 142 voting sites. The demands are great on the poll workers who commit to work two weeks of early voting and up to 14 hours on election day. All workers receive four hours of training on the operation of the voting machines and procedures for processing voters. Early voting for August is fully staffed and poll workers are receiving training for the August election.

Election day workers are still needed for voting precincts. Once the August election is concluded work begins on the November election for state and federal offices and some of the suburban municipalities.

Please consider being a part of this civic initiative by stepping up and working a polling site this August and November. For the August election we will employ over 1100 citizens to staff 142 voting locations and 26 early voting sites. Not only would you help meet a significant civic need but it is a nice part time job prior to the holiday season. Past elections have seen many more democrats than republicans stepping up and helping during elections.

Poll workers help communities voice their beliefs

It is important to maintain a political balance at voting sites to ensure that equity and fairness is apparent in managing election procedures. The greatest shortage now is for more republicans to provide party balance in the inner city precincts.

A few years ago a friend suggested I work an election site to gain a clearer insight into how elections are conducted. Having competed in several elections as a candidate I had plenty of experience leading up to election day. In 2020 I closed the circle by working an early voting location for two weeks.

What I observed was a dedicated team of citizens both democrats and republicans working side by side to help voters understand what can be a difficult and confusing ballot and making a genuine effort to guarantee their vote counted.

More than 50% of our poll workers have worked previous elections. Not for the money as much as the opportunity to give back in a significant way to help others. For me, an active politician for 20 years , it is rewarding to see the commitment by so many of our citizens wanting to promote the importance of voting in our democracy.

Mark Luttrell is the chairman of the Shelby County Election Commission

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Poll workers are essential to the preservation of voting and democracy