Young Poll Workers Can Make a Difference

As a young voter, I have to agree with MTV’s article “Young Poll Workers Can Help Prevent Another Vote-Counting Fiasco In November.” It is true that young people can make a difference by volunteering in the polls. Since numerous poll sites are currently using new technology to record poll results, I believe that younger employees are more qualified to work since they are more familiar with the technology that is being used. As the article emphazises, older poll workers are “unfamiliar and intimidated” with the new machines being used at voting sites. Furthermore, due to their familiarity with technology, the presence of young poll voters could help the U.S. avoid another fiasco as occurred in the 2000 election were votes had to be recounted. If votes have to be recounted, younger individuals are more agile to count votes by hand. A problem that has been reported in the primaries this year is long lines lasting 9-12 hours, in states such as New Jersey and Georgia. In order to avoid this younger individuals can help since they can better guide individuals with their agility, and perhaps their help can speed up the voting process.
Certain things that could be done in order to speed the voting process and reduce fiascos during this and other elections include:

• Better train poll workers
• Replace lever and punch card machines with electronic or optical scan machines
• Conduct random checks of poll machines in order to avoid fiascos
• Avoid using machines that could be easily tampered with.