The Monroe County Board of Elections, and its poll workers in particular, are ill-prepared for the contentious 2024 general election, according to a recent report to the Legislature from a polling company supervisor.
Carrie Remis, a top government lawyer and co-chair of polling officials in the city of Irondequoit, told the Legislature that the local elections apparatus is “woefully underprepared for the palpable increase in voter frustration and distrust.”
“Despite demand, MCBOE has allocated little to no additional training time for leaders to ask questions about how to deal with disgruntled or belligerent constituents, role-play or learn from real-world case studies, all considered best practices in adult learning . Remis wrote in her memo, dated May 23.
State data shows Monroe County is experiencing unusually high turnover among poll workers, something Remis attributed to increasingly stressful conditions at polling places.
One in four poll workers were first-time employees in 2022, twice as many as in any other major county and four times as many as the state average, state data show.
She said the top two local election officials, Jackie Ortiz and Lisa Nicolay, “have taken a hard look at the problem and rejected good-faith efforts to address the underlying reasons for the shortage.”
Ortiz, a Democrat, and Nicolay, a Republican, pushed back on the criticism, saying there has been no measurable increase in confrontations at the ballot box, and accused Remis of seeking “salacious headlines,” in Ortiz’s words, rather than actual improvements.
“I feel like this woman is complaining about things that don’t exist, either for her own self-promotion or because she’s an instigator,” Nicolay said.
Remis sent her memo to the Legislature and various elected officials and voter groups, but not directly to the media.
“It is disappointing that the county is dismissing poll watchers’ concerns without so much as an investigation or hearing,” she wrote in an email. “If Commissioners Nicolay and Ortiz spent any time listening to the pollster corps and the larger voting public, they would know we are uncomfortable and are looking to them for reassurance. Remaining deaf to concerns and ideas for improvement is not leadership. I hope they think about it again.”
Harassment is on the rise – but not here?
Since 2020, there have been widespread reports from across the United States of poll workers and elected officials being harassed and intimidated by disgruntled voters and self-appointed election inspectors, including many on the far right who have come to doubt the validity of democratic elections.
The U.S. Department of Defense Election Threats Task Force announced in March that it was investigating dozens of threats against election workers across the country and highlighted the challenge for local and state election boards. A poll from the Brennan Center for Justice found that more than half of local election officials were concerned about the safety of their staff.
“It’s a tough time (for pollsters) and some of them have said, ‘I don’t need this,’” said Paul Smith, senior vice president of the Campaign Legal Center.
In Monroe County, however, Ortiz and Nicolay said they had not seen the same effect.
“We don’t have this plethora of complaints or incidents that (Remis) is talking about,” Ortiz said. “If it happens, it’s not documented.”
Grosh cited reports to her organization of “Republican poll watchers sitting around and talking about whether you can trust elections these days.”
“That seems like a bad, bad thing to me,” she said. “When the pollsters spread these kinds of rumors, it’s pretty hard to fight.”
Ortiz said that while there have been isolated cases of this type of banned talk, she believes there are few of them, in part because of the law that requires a Democrat and a Republican to serve together. “They’re not allowed to talk about something like that,” she said. “If they’re Republican, they know they’re sitting next to a Democrat. So why even have that conversation?”
Does turnover matter?
Ortiz and Nicolay said they didn’t know why Monroe County has such a high turnover rate among poll workers compared to other counties, but said it doesn’t matter as long as they are properly trained.
“I bet there’s a lot of turnover at McDonald’s too,” Nicolay said. “Is anyone up for that?”
They also cast doubt on Remis’ claim that “there are election deniers among the ranks of poll workers” — a concern echoed by Barbara Grosh, president of the local League of Women Voters.
They said the training given to survey workers adequately covers safety issues, including how to escalate problems to law enforcement.
“Even if it’s just one or two slides during training, it makes for a very robust discussion,” Ortiz said.
The manual for poll workers on the provincial election board website does not contain any reference to security measures.
A slideshow on “verbal de-escalation techniques” recently posted to the website includes instructions that poll workers “stand in a corner so you can step aside if necessary” and “keep your hands out of your pockets (and) be available to to protect yourself. .”
That physical combat advice may be of limited value to the 25% of Monroe County poll workers who are over 70, according to state statistics.
“The training is pretty superficial,” Grosh said. “So far nothing terrible has happened, but I’m still a long way from knowing what to do in a million different situations. … There are nasty, angry people coming in to vote.”
Not only are the pollsters relatively inexperienced; in 2024 there will also be fewer. The province is aiming for 3,500 poll workers this year, up from 4,800 in 2020.
Nicolay said 3,500 will be enough as more people are expected to vote early compared to the last presidential election.
Recommendations not followed
Remis’ memo calls on the legislature to take several concrete actions.
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Form a standing committee to monitor elections
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Create a code of conduct for local election workers
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Require greater transparency with data on poll worker workforce and safety, as well as registration processing
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Use provincial and community resources ‘to dispel election misinformation’ and recruit and train poll workers’
Notably, the transparency recommendation points to a sharp drop in new local voter registrations in 2022: 29,000, down from 106,000 in the most recent midterm year and far short of the projected 125,000. That information was never shared with the Legislature or the public, Remis said.
Dave Long, a Democratic lawmaker from Irondequoit who has met with both Remis and Ortiz, said he doesn’t believe there is any need for legislative action.
“I didn’t find anything that immediately concerned me,” he said. “There hasn’t really been any discussion with others that I’ve heard about this.”
A spokeswoman for Monroe County Executive Adam Bello referred to Ortiz and Nicolay for comment. They said they saw no need for additional resources or legislative oversight.
“If they want to have an oversight committee, then whatever,” Nicolay said. “That doesn’t intimidate me one bit.”
Primary day is June 25, with early voting from June 15 to 23. The general election is on November 5, with early voting from October 26 to November 3.
– Justin Murphy is a veteran reporter at the Democrat and Chronicle and author of “Your Children Are Very Greatly in Danger: School Segregation in Rochester, New York.” Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/CitizenMurphy or contact him at jmurphy7@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: County officials dismiss concerns about poll worker safety and turnover
