Pennsylvania election: Common Cause seeks poll monitor volunteers
If you're voting in person on election day, you may have more than fellow voters and election workers joining you at your polling place.
Common Cause of Pennsylvania is recruiting non-partisan "poll monitors" to be outside many voting places to offer voters help, if needed. Volunteers can sign up at the group's "election protection" website, protectthevote.net .
"We anticipate lots of questions from voters about voting by mail, completing their vote by mail ballot. Where do I turn it in? And then when folks come to the polling sites every year, there are issues at a scattered number of polling sites around lines, polling places not opening on time and some persistent issues that we pay attention to," Common Cause PA executive director Philip Hensley-Robin told Pittsburgh's Action News 4.
The non-partisan group is hoping to line up hundreds of volunteers to go out on election day and make sure voters can overcome any obstacles and report any issues.
"We'll train you in what Pennsylvania election law provides and requires so that they can answer broader questions about, do I need voter ID? How do I fill out my vote by mail ballot? Can I get a provisional ballot? Can I get assistance in the polling place? That's the training that all of our poll monitors get," Hensley-Robin said.
He says they're different from election workers staffed inside your polling place and from political watchers for the candidates and political parties standing outside where you vote.
"You can tell our poll monitors apart because they're nonpartisan. They've got the black and white election protection shirts," Hensley-Robin said. "They're in red or blue or handing out anything for candidates. They're just there with information for voters."
"For partisan observers, they're allowed to be outside the polling place, offering their fliers and information and sample ballots. What they can't do is they can't harass, they can't intimidate, they can't pursue voters into the polling place, and they shouldn't challenge voters inside the polling place," Hensley-Robin said.
"And there might be a lot of misinformation and disinformation about our elections. And so that's a challenge. So what our poll monitors are there to do is to explain what the rules are, how you can vote, and what you're entitled to as a voter to make sure that everybody who is eligible voter can cast a vote that counts," Hensley-Robin said.
Common Cause will also offer a toll-free hotline — 866-OUR-VOTE — to take calls from voters about more complex issues that may come up at voting places on election day.
"And also, if it's a serious issue that requires escalation, the election protection attorneys that work on our team will reach out to the county and resolve anything that's happening at that polling place that's impeding voters from voting," Hensley-Robin said.
