Veterans group recruited 100,000 election workers
Ellen Gustafson is a co-founder of We the Veterans. He said that by the time people vote this coming November, one in ten poll workers will either be a veteran or a veteran’s family member. This nonprofit group reached its goal last month of recruiting 100,000 people. The National Conference of State Legislatures said that over 1 million temporary workers will be needed to work at polling locations this November.
From Military Times
When voters head to the polls to cast their ballots this November, at least one out of every 10 election workers they see will be a veteran or a family member of a veteran, said Ellen Gustafson, the co-founder of a nonprofit that recruits military-connected individuals to volunteer at polling places.
The nonprofit, We the Veterans, reached its goal this month of recruiting 100,000 people to serve as poll workers in their communities. As of Wednesday afternoon, 136,815 had signed up. In total, about 1 million temporary workers will be needed to staff polling locations across the country this November, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Those workers welcome and check in voters, issue ballots and explain how to use voting equipment. Having veterans and their family members perform those tasks lends credibility to the process and helps quash skepticism during a time when public trust in the government is low, We the Veterans believes.
“You can be pretty confident that when you go vote, somebody in the direct line of your ballot is a veteran or military family member,” Gustafson said. “We think this is a great opportunity to engage our population in an important civic service, and we think a side benefit is that having our most trusted group of Americans doing the work of running elections should absolutely bring more trust across America into the process.”
Additional Reading:
Wentling, N. (2024, July 11). Veterans group hits goal of recruiting 100,000 election workers. Military Times. Link.
Category: 2024 Election, Politics, Society, Veterans in the news
There was a request for poll workers and during the news interview they openly stated they welcomed Veterans as well as civilians.
Imma gonna go out on a limb here and think that our very own ninja has been involved in poll watching in the Old Dominion State for a good while now. My local polling place has at least one (1) Vet on staff and my name is own the list for any opening that come up.
Speaking of voting saw another blurb in a news feed that there are some where in the neighborhood of 10 million firearms owners that ARE NOT registered to vote.
I’ve been a poll worker for about 5yrs now. Believe me I get more out of it than I put in. A great experience.
There are a few places in Philly that I think they should just set up cameras watching the number of people that go in to vote and then counting them against the actual votes.
You can rest assured that as a veteran, Hunter Biden will be watching the poles, and counting the ballots, for Best Lap Dancer at the Mpire Club. No joke.
I had some questions about this group “We the Veterans”… who are they, who is funding them, do they have a political bias, etc. Call me cynical.
Found some…more questions.
They were founded in 2021. They are a partnership (construct?) of START – the National Consortium of the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism, founded in 2005, funded by the DHS, headquartered at the University of Maryland. Some of the academic people, papers and positions at UMD and the “more than 50 institutions” they (START) partner with and support seem pretty biased i.e., domestic terrorism is a higher threat than foreign actors. But that’s just from my quick read.
There are others here that are better at deep-diving than me, and I’m hoping someone will and share what they find.
I really, really want veterans, those whom I believe to have the most reverence for the Constitution to be at every polling place, ballot drop box and ballot harvesting initiative in the Nation, to actually protect the integrity of our system. I really don’t want this to be a psyop move. I guess we’ll know after the election by who touts their presence as proof our elections are secure.