Poll workers earn as little as $5/day by law in some states while working 13+ hour shifts, and 54% of jurisdictions cannot recruit enough of them

Colorado state law sets the minimum compensation for election judges at $5 per day. While many Colorado counties pay more than this floor, the statute itself signals how little the role is valued in law. Across the country, poll worker compensation is a patchwork: Delaware pays a $300 stipend, Alaska pays $20/hour, New Jersey raised its minimum to $15/hour in 2024, and South Carolina's Election Commission recently requested budget increases to fund a $40 daily raise. Meanwhile, the job itself requires a minimum of 13 hours on Election Day, often starting before 6 AM and ending after 8 PM, plus mandatory training sessions that may or may not be compensated. The EAC's 2022 survey found that 54.1% of jurisdictions reported difficulty recruiting poll workers, with the problem persisting in every major election since 2018. The downstream effect is that polling places cannot open enough lines, wait times increase, and voters in high-traffic precincts—disproportionately in urban and minority communities—bear the cost. In Pennsylvania, election officials in Montgomery, Bucks, and Chester counties reported needing to appoint people to 30-50% of poll worker positions because not enough volunteers signed up. When positions go unfilled, the remaining workers are stretched thinner, mistakes increase, and the voter experience degrades. A 2024 Chester County incident demonstrated the connection directly: two inexperienced poll workers, inadequately trained, selected the wrong option when printing poll books, excluding all non-major-party voters. Over 12,000 voters were forced to cast provisional ballots as a result. The reason this problem persists is that poll worker compensation is set by state legislatures that have little incentive to raise it. The political cost of raising poll worker pay is real—it requires either tax increases or cuts to other budget items—while the benefit is diffuse and invisible (shorter lines, fewer errors, better-run elections). The average poll worker is 61 or older, and 16.7% are first-timers, meaning the workforce is aging out and being replaced by people with no institutional knowledge. Younger workers who might be interested cannot afford to take a full day off work for $100-200 in compensation, especially in states without laws requiring employers to give time off for poll work.