RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Since the 2020 presidential election, CBS News has been looking into why there has been so much turnover among top poll officials across the country.
Olivia McCall, Director of the Elections Board in Wake County, told Baron James of CBS 17 that things are going as planned and that the number of people training to be election workers is up a lot.
McCall said, “We work with partners in the country, the state, and even the federal government to make sure we have a plan for everything that could happen.”
About 200 people who care about politics trained at the Operations Center in Raleigh on Tuesday afternoon to join the other 4,200 people who will work at the polls from early voting to election day.
“There will always be a need for people because some do it and then decide it was too much” “They didn’t want to come back,” James Lindley, a Poll trainer, said.
CBS News’ study found that since the last presidential election, 36% of election officials across the country have either quit or been harassed or threatened with death. This is because the country is politically hostile and divided.
“Safety is always one of our main concerns,” McCall said. “That goes for our workers, our precinct officials, and our voters.”
According to the CBS investigation, experts are also worried that the lack of experience of the new supervisors could cause mistakes that affect how quickly people can vote, how the votes are counted, how the votes are certified, and finally how the election turns out.
The NC State Board of Elections has most recently told CBS 17 that county election leaders have changed 58 times in North Carolina over the last 5 years. This is true for all precincts.
Director McCall has been in charge since her predecessor left, about a year and a half ago. She says they have plans in place to make sure everything runs smoothly.
Call also said, “Plans need to be made and safety needs to be the top priority.”