There are nearly 2 million registered voters in San Diego county and on Nov. 8 poll workers will be available to assist voters at every voting location.
Last year beginning in October, San Diego County implemented the vote center model. Instead of having one day to vote at a specific location, voters can now go to any of the 218 vote centers over the course of 10 days.
Cynthia Paes is the registrar of voters for San Diego County.
“Now, they’re required to work multiple days, so they switch from being a one day volunteer to now a temporary county employee. So they go through the hiring process of the county,” Paes said.
The county uses a software called NEOGOV and the application process is completely online.
“A critical part of using the county’s hiring process is to accurately maintain this information,” Paes continued, “And get up to date address information so we can mail checks timely and do payroll timely."
“The training is now two days long. Where under the traditional polling place model, it was four hours long. So now, it’s a full two days of training plus a half day of setup and a half day of breakdown.,” Paes said.
Poll workers' pay changed too.
“Now you’re a temporary employee, receiving from the County of San Diego, an hourly wage.” Paes said.
A technical inspector receives $15 an hour and for those with recent poll worker experience, a precinct inspector can make $17.61 an hour.
Thousands of poll workers are now required to work between one and two weeks. According to Paes there was no problem recruiting workers for this upcoming election, except for certain bilingual poll workers.
“We always struggle with those that speak Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean,” Paes said.
Positions are still available for bilingual poll workers. Go to SDVOTE and click on the poll worker tab.
