Poll workers are needed for the upcoming mayoral primary election in Allegheny County
You may want to text this to them if you're the parent of a student in Allegheny County.
The division of elections is now accepting applications for the student poll worker program ahead of next month's mayoral primary on May 20.
Jessica Garofalo said Allegheny County had a student poll worker program for decades. A lot of people didn't know about it until recently though.
"Our poll worker population was declining and people were really aging out." Garofolo, the Allegheny County Director of Administrative Services, said. "In 2021, we really started to promote it and we saw 100."
Last year's general election saw big gains, but Garofolo said the primaries will be difficult.
"I think in 2024, we had the most at 261 students from 30 different schools," Garofolo said. "We're competing with prom, and spring sports, and graduations, and things like that."
Garofolo said meeting last year's student number would be ideal.
That's out of about 6,000 workers they need to make everything go well on Primary Day.
"Right now we're sitting at about 5,000 poll workers spread across the county," Garofolo said.
High school students enrolled in Allegheny County are eligible, but they have to be at least 17 years old.
"We also ask for parental or guardian consent, and then consent from your school district," Garofolo said.
The max of $170 for the day includes $20 for training, and a full day of volunteering isn't required.
"They can also take a half day," Garofolo said. "They can work from 6 to 1 or 1 to 9 and earn $75."
Garofolo says the Elections Division sent letters to all of the county's schools.
"We typically target any civics instructors, [or] government instructors," she said. "We'll also send the informational packets out to guidance counselors."
Garofolo said getting involved is a great way to see the electoral process and learn about it.
"They can see what it takes to open up a poll," she said. "They can engage with their community that's coming in to cast their vote throughout the day."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Two Mercer County towns among Tuesday elections
bramwell — Voters will decide two town elections next week in Mercer County. The elections are set for Tuesday, June 10, in Bramwell and Athens. They are among 77 towns and cities across the Mountain State that hold an election Tuesday. In the town of Athens, the races are uncontested with two candidates vying for two seats on town council, according to Athens Town Clerk Debra Shorter. The candidates are incumbent council member Travis Pace and candidate James Blankenship. Incumbent Athens Mayor Timothy Peak also is running unopposed for re-election. The situation is different in Bramwell where the races for mayor, recorder and town council are all contested. Grant Bennett, the current mayor of Bramwell, is being challenged by former Mayor Louise Stoker and candidate Rodney Holcomb. Susan Lance Troutner, a current town council member, and Lathe Ellis are running for town recorder. Eight candidates are vying for four seats on the Bramwell Town Council, according to Bennett, who was answering the phone Friday at town hall. They include incumbents Jackie Shahan, Dennis Marcello, Charles Hawthorne and Kelley Murphy Eller and candidates Don Thompson, Perry Love, Elizabeth Brown Tillery and Sharon Workman, according to a legal advertisement copy of the ballot published in the Daily Telegraph. In all, 77 towns across West Virginia will hold an election Tuesday, according to West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner. Warner said some municipalities with contested races will receive a compliance visit on Election Day from an authorized representative of the Secretary of State's Office. 'My office will have more than a dozen individuals visiting municipal elections throughout the state on Election Day, June 10th,' Warner said in a statement Friday. 'These compliance visits are intended to ensure that polling locations are safe, secure and following the protocols in place to help every interested and eligible voter cast a ballot.' Warner said the visits are educational in nature to assist the clerks or recorders in charge of the elections, as well as the poll workers at each location. Trained members of the Elections Division, the WVSOS Field Team, or the Investigations Division will conduct the compliance visits, according to the Secretary of State's office. Contact Charles Owens at cowens@
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
5 Songs That Define Zohran Mamdani's Campaign for New York Mayor
Image by Chris Panicker. Photo by Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Zohran K. Mamdani presents like a true man of the people. The 33-year-old Queens assemblyman frequently travels by Citi Bike, is unfailingly gregarious in encounters with his constituents, and, in March, showed up to the State Capitol to demand the release of Columbia graduate activist Mahmoud Khalil—still detained for his role in organizing the school's protests against the war in Gaza. But Mamdani wants to be the man of the people, and his eye is set on the highest office in the five boroughs: mayor of New York. When Mamdani announced his run last October, he (and, frankly, anyone else without the last name Cuomo) was considered a dark horse in the race. But in just five months, his grassroots, social media–driven campaign—inspired by fellow young, internet-savvy progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Florida representative Maxwell Frost, and City Council member Chi Ossé—and affordability–driven messaging made him the first candidate to max out on public fundraising, with more individual donors than all of his primary competition combined. According to a recent Intelligencer profile, around 22,000 volunteers and counting have canvassed on behalf of Zohran for NYC, as Mamdani challenges to win the Democratic nomination. 'There's a lot of your life that you cannot live in the same way in the midst of a campaign of this scale,' Mamdani told me recently over the phone from Albany. 'But music is one of the things that you can hold on to, because you can listen to it in the midst of doing something else.' Mamdani has never found himself too far from the world of music. He volunteered for Ali Najmi's campaign for City Council, in 2015, after learning about the candidate from former Das Racist rapper Heems, and even pursued his own short-lived hip-hop career under the name Mr. Cardamom. Earlier this spring, Mamdani turned an MJ Lenderman concert at Brooklyn Steel into an impromptu rally, speaking about his policies and concerns for the city for several minutes. Summarizing his platform to me, Mamdani said 'It's about the fact that New Yorkers can't afford to live in the city they call home.' To that end, he recently pledged to increase governmental assistance to one-to-one small business programs by $20 million and slash fines for those same businesses in half, to 'ensure that the places that make this city feel like home, the places that make our city so special, are the ones that continue to thrive here.' Mamdani and I spoke about living on a 'permanent digital tape delay,' making Spotify Blend playlists with his wife, and the New York hip-hop classic that he believes is the perfect anthem for Primary Day, Tuesday, June 24. A lot of the way I get around the city while I'm running for mayor is via Citi Bike, and this is a song that has been stuck on loop in my head for many, many months of the campaign. I was once actually singing along to it a little bit too loudly as I ran into a potential constituent. A major initiative we've been leading since the beginning of this campaign is making the slowest buses in the country fast and free, and getting around quickly is also at the core of that song, when Blake speaks about trading in the blue for the white bike. I think many of us Citi Bikers can attest that when you have to actually get somewhere fast, there's no better way. Part of what connects Citi Biking with that same vision around buses and public transit in general is that if we want New Yorkers to use public transit, then we should incentivize it and ensure that it's not actually more expensive depending on what mode you use. And, right now, it can be prohibitively expensive to use a Citi Bike to get somewhere, which I've found myself a number of times, where you can see a cost going past $10 because you missed a train and the only way to get there as quickly as possible is by bike—yet it was costing you more than three times the amount. So I live on a permanent digital tape delay, which is how I describe watching Instagram Reels instead of TikTok, and that's how I found this song. Unlike most people who hear a song in that matter, I then went and added it to my playlist and now know many of the words. It's a song where one of the lines is 'I know there's an email that hopes to find me well/Well, I hope it don't find me.' And it is a song that I identify with, especially as this race intensifies: just how many emails and text messages I'm currently behind on, dreaming every night as I go to bed of 'inbox zero' and waking up to 'inbox a thousand.' I try to go through as close as I can to 50-100 text messages each day, but the thing about sending one is you might get another one back. A classic. It has some hints of Indian representation with the shoutouts to Slumdog Millionaire, and it's indicative of what you have to do with the campaign—just keep your head above water. I think Kendrick absolutely destroyed him. It's a real testament to message discipline over many songs, and it's an inspiration for me as a politician to always stay on my message. I'm trying to do what Kendrick did in the course of that beef, but, specifically, around affordability. At every juncture, he would bring it back to his central points, and I think that's the key, is that you keep coming back to what your core message is. For me, it's about the fact that New Yorkers can't afford to live in the city they call home. This song brings me back to the little Arabic I've been able to retain, because the opening is just her counting from one to 10. It reminds me of how much work I have to do to get back to some kind of conversational fluency. I studied Arabic in college and was at one point conversational, but that has, sadly, left me in the years since. I think there's a lot of your life that you cannot live in the same way in the midst of a campaign of this scale, but music is one of the things you can hold on to because you can listen to it in the midst of doing something else—walking to the train, getting on the bus. Even in the morning, just as I'm getting ready, my wife and I will listen to a number of Indian songs that are sometimes classical, sometimes a little more lo-fi, and then as I get out of the house, it tends to go into a lot of rap and hip-hop and also a heavy dose of nostalgia for the 2010s. I remember when we first met, my wife and I did one of those blended Spotify playlists, and it was really embarrassing, because all of her songs were these lovely beautifully curated songs, even though it was algorithmically generated. It just felt very thoughtful and intentional, and all of mine were, like, 'Love in this Club,' by Usher featuring Young Jeezy. Speaks for itself. Never has a song been made specifically about June 24 until this. Originally Appeared on Pitchfork
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
Vermont Voter Portal will put registration, voter information in one place
MONTPELIER, Vt. (ABC22/FOX44) – Both voters and town clerks will have a more convenient time next Election Day. Vermont's Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas on Tuesday invited Vermonters to visit the new 'Vermont Voter Portal' at The new website allows eligible Vermonters to register to vote, find their polling place, request an absentee ballot, get a list of their elected officials, or see which past elections they voted in – all in one place. Amy Pear, town clerk for Maidstone in Essex County said, 'This part of our job definitely just got a little bit easier. I'm excited to share the Vermont Voter Portal with my residents… the voters' experience itself is also getting a big upgrade.' Vermont exempts some home kitchen businesses from licensing fees Previously, Vermonters needed to go to separate websites to register and to view their election information. Copeland Hanzas is also excited about upgrades to Vermont's Election Management System (VEMS). This system isn't something most voters will use, but it's the software that clerks and the Secretary of State's office will use to report, process, and certify election results. Vermont Gov. Phil Scott signs $9.1 billion FY26 state budget 'When it comes to technology, it's crucial to stay up to date. One of my main priorities when I took office in 2023 was to renovate our online systems throughout the office,' said Copeland Hanzas. 'Our Elections Division has been taking advantage of the 'off season' to work tirelessly on this overhaul, so that we can be ready for the upcoming election cycles.' Election night results will remain available at Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
