Counties in need of poll workers following high voter registration numbers

With the high number of potential voters comes the need for a lot of poll workers, more than 2500 in Travis County’s case.

AUSTIN, Texas - With November 3rd just around the corner, the excitement for Election Day can be seen in the numbers.

Travis County is reporting a high number of voter registrations this year versus the last presidential election.

“Very big turn out is expected and we are loving every minute of it,” said Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir. “We have quite a few new registered voters since 4 years ago. We are looking at more than 800,000 registered voters and that was a couple days ago, we may see still more people sign up for the registration deadline."

SIGN UP FOR FOX 7 AUSTIN EMAIL ALERTS

Travis County Clerk’s Office: Some polling issues due to ‘multiple no-shows’ of workers

The Travis County Clerk's Office says that Super Tuesday got off to a rocky start due to multiple no-shows of election judges and poll workers apparently due to fears over the coronavirus.

DOWNLOAD THE FOX 7 AUSTIN NEWS APP

With the high number of potential voters comes the need for a lot of poll workers, more than 2500 in Travis County’s case.

"Recruiting is always a kind of open and closed book for us because just when we get things set, we lose people to various events and problems and we have to recruit again,” said DeBeauvior.

One concern heading into Election Day is an issue the area saw earlier this year. In March some poll workers didn’t show up due to concerns about COVID-19. The county shared how they plan to work around this if the same thing happens in November.

From no-show poll workers to 2-hour wait times, voters faced challenges on Super Tuesday in Austin

One man took the day off work to come and vote, but little did he know he would be spending about two hours just waiting.

“We recruit extra people in case something might happen. We are thinking it might happen for this election so we recruit about 60 to 80 extra people that way if we have a person signed to a particular voting place we can quickly put another person in,” said DeBeauvior.

Sanitation will also be a major focus this November at the polls.

“We’ll be cleaning multiple times during the day but we’ve also made arrangements to have a professional cleaning done after elections so the owner of the building gets a clean surface when it goes back to them when we are done,” said DeBeauvior.

For more information on how to be a poll worker in Travis County, click here. To be a poll worker in Williamson County, click here, and to become a poll worker in Hays County, click here.

To register to vote, click here.

CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST INFO ON THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK

FOX 7 Austin is working to keep you up to date with coronavirus, with both local and national developments. You can also get the latest COVID-19 news from around the country at coronavirusnow.com.