Ridiculous Voting Bill Considered
To the Editor:
We are fortunate in Fayette County to have an Election Administrator with the highest integrity who is respected by both sides of the political aisle. She’s done an outstanding job and conducts her office with a non-partisan approach. Members of my family have worked in just about every election (primary and general) for the past few cycles. For those of us who have a career and family (esp. with younger children), it’s a bit of a burden but one we take on to fulfill our civic duty. There’s a commitment to spending 12+ hours at a polling place and in some cases fighting extreme boredom. Frankly, the pay isn’t worth the hassle and there are a million places/things I’d rather do than work an election. However, Fayette County often struggles to fulfill the need for election workers and 2020 presented specific challenges filling this need... so my family volunteered again (splitting duties, both holding down the household and working the election).
Even with the potential redistricting we could see here in Fayette County, there will still be a need (and quite possibly continued shortages) of election workers. This will be massively compounded if some of the ridiculous voting propositions pass and get implemented. HB6, for example, creates and increases criminal penalties on election workers for, in some cases, unwittingly committing an infraction. Anyone who has ever worked an election knows that you sometimes have to make snap judgements on how a person should be able to vote (e.g. provisional or regular ballot) or if they can cast a ballot at all (e.g. if they are marked at having a mail-in-ballot or have otherwise already voted) and in November our precinct judge had to call the elections office once or twice for situational clarification. If this bill passes and the precinct judge were to make a ‘mistake,’ even if directed by the elections office, they could now be criminally liable for the ‘infraction’ which would, with HB6, include fines on the order of tens-of-thousands of dollars and potential jail time which in some cases could rival those of murder.
OK, so... by spending 12-20 hours of my time between training, setup, and election hours... by having to shake up my family’s daily routines, take PTO, and the inconveniences it takes to work an election, you’re going to reward these workers with $100- $150. But, now, with this bill, the worker will also assume new potential criminal risk by trying to do a job no one else really wants to do, one that many won’t step up to do without these new potential penalties and undoubtedly will see even fewer volunteers if it does pass.
Seems to me that Mrs. Heffner’s job is about to get a lot more difficult when it comes to staffing elections. If this bill passes, neither I nor my family will be working any more elections. Sorry Terri, it’s not you, it’s those hacks in Austin who continue to perpetuate the “Big Lie.”
Eric Green
La Grange