The last tactical mile: Good government starts at the polling place

This week, one of Carolina Journal’s employees, who is new to our great state, went with a significant other to early vote. Both voters had identical paperwork and circumstances: They are registered voters outside the 90-day window prior to the election, legal residents of the state, and have voted in previous elections, but only possess an out-of-state driver’s license.

Our employee was turned away and told to return with a passport (which notably doesn’t have an address, but that’s a column for another day), while their significant other was allowed to cast a ballot. The issue at hand isn’t as much state election law, but the inconsistencies with which it seems to be applied, even in the same line at the same precinct, just different poll workers.

It begs the question: What is the training for the thousands of North Carolina poll workers dutifully managing our state elections during the last tactical mile of the process?

Conducting lawful elections is a core government responsibility and, standing at the check-in table, we assume every poll worker in every county is operating from a clear understanding and an approved process on applying our state election laws.

Currently, counties conduct their own poll worker training within statewide requirements and guidance. State law already directs the State Board of Elections to establish precinct official training rules, and it requires county instruction before elections. However, only the county elections administrators are directly trained with one curriculum on election law.

How each of the 100 counties implements those state requirements or uses the multitude of training resources available through the NCSBE is up to the individual counties. While local control is generally a good thing and the lack of centralization doesn’t necessarily mean that poll worker training is overall poor, the practical question is whether every worker receives the same essential, current instruction.

It may be time to consider reviewing, updating, and organizing the training materials that taxpayers have already supported, and develop a statewide curriculum for poll workers, delivered only through a non-partisan vehicle, perhaps the community colleges.

This could be a single-day course in local classrooms with a common training program on the basics:

• Applying voter check-in and identification requirements, including lawful exceptions
• Recognizing situations involving provisional ballots, curbside voting, or other voter assistance
• Maintaining impartiality, ballot secrecy, and appropriate interactions with observers
• Knowing when to involve a chief judge or contact the county elections office

This would keep counties in charge of their individual hands-on instruction on their voting equipment, polling-place setup, staffing assignments, and local workflows. But a common training element and follow-up preserves local responsibility for carrying them out.

Every poll worker serving our state deserves a clear, current, nonpartisan grounding in the same election laws. None of the work done by lawmakers, bill drafters, researchers, elections officials, volunteers, and candidates, matters if the person on the other side of the check-in desk doesn’t apply the rules correctly.

That said, the goal isn’t to create an additional training mandate and impose additional costs but rather to tighten the system that NCSBE has worked hard to create, ensuring that the law is applied as written by the legislature all the way to the last tactical mile.