The Bay Area High School Election Workers Helping to Make Sure Your Vote Is Counted

Even though most Bay Area high school students are not old enough to vote in this election, a number of them are still participating in the process as election workers at the polls — working long hours both during the early voting period and now on Election Day. To get the job, they all had to take a short online course and pass a test, and most make about $100 a day. KQED spoke with three students about why they chose to do it.

Robert Steffani, Encinal High School in Alameda

Steffani, 17, a senior at Encinal, is working as an election clerk at the Oakland Coliseum polling location, where he helps set up voting stations at the beginning of day and then monitors ballots as voters deliver them.

How did you get involved?

Some program came to the school and they kind of asked if we wanted to volunteer. And I saw the opportunity and I thought I should help.

Why did you decide to help?

My mom also helped a lot with the elections, but due to COVID, she wasn’t able to. So I had the opportunity, so I did.

Were you nervous?

My mom went over it with me, so I was pretty comfortable and knew what I was supposed to do.

Why do you think more youth are voting in this election?

A lot of people didn’t vote last election. And I think now they know that it is very important to vote. So they’re just taking the opportunity now.

What issues are most important to you this election?

The Black Lives Matter movement is very important, especially in this community, where we’re at. I just think it’s nice that everyone’s, you know, being vocal and standing up now. 

As a student, I kind of just wanted to come out here and be present. I just think it is good because we can show people our age can be more mature and take this voting thing seriously.

Juliana Contreras, Arise High School in East Oakland

Contreras, 16, is also working as a clerk at the Oakland Coliseum polling place, setting up voting machines at the beginning of the day and checking in voters.

Why did you get involved?

I mean, honestly, I’ve always been very social justice aware, and I wanted to make change. You know, I can’t really do much about everything that’s happening right now. And I know that a lot of people, they don’t vote because the lines are too long. And I was like, they need younger people so it works faster, you know? So I thought that was important.

What sort of social justice issues are important to you? 

Arise is very social justice driven. I was also part of the Radical Monarchs [a project aimed at empowering young girls of color]. I was in the first group. So yeah, that’s like something really big that changed my mindset.

Is your family political?

Me and my mom were very political and we’re very all about social justice and all that. My family is a little bit more different. Like, they have different opinions, their own political opinions. I mean, my mom may not agree, but like I mean, we’re family, so yeah.

What do you think is motivating young people like yourself to step forward in new ways?

I think it’s just history repeating itself. I think youth are like, wow, this is really happening again? You know, we’re the future. We can do something about it.

I think it’s really important for you to vote right now because it could just make a really big impact. And even if you’re not doing it for yourself, this is affecting a lot of lives. And I just think it’s really important. That’s why I like working here.

With your long work hours here you are missing school, right?

I’m going to miss Monday and Tuesday. But I emailed my teachers. And they were like, no issue, because they know how important this is.

Frances Lebowitz, Berkeley High School

Lebowitz, 16, is working as an election judge at the UC Berkeley Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union polling place.

Does being an election judge come with a lot of pressure?

It’s a little bit stressful because, you know, you want to make sure that you are actually following the directions properly. I think just because of the gravity of the situation, I mean, there are all kinds of different laws that we have to follow and we’re just like normal people. And so I think knowing that there have been, you know, constitutional things and Supreme Court rulings [and] state laws and regulations that have directly affected the things that we have to do and the things that we cannot do is certainly intimidating.

What does your job entail?

So there are these online voting machines and they’re sort of these long tablets that are attached to a privacy screen and a table. And every time someone uses one, we have a key card and we have to swipe it every time a voter goes in and out of the booth. …

So we actually have to look up and find their ballot when they get there and when they give us their card with their information on it. They will hand one of us their card and we will go into the computer and find the appropriate ballot. We’ll print the ballot for them. We will have to put it in order because the paper sheets come out of the printer in the wrong order. So we actually have to take it apart and put it back and give it to them in a privacy sleeve.

What could cause a problem at a voting site?

I think that the most common issue election workers are having right now is just stuff with the technology, because there are a lot of different things plugged in to a lot of other different things. And when you have a lot of people sort of moving around, moving in and out, some things can get messed up and you might not know why it’s not working. We actually did go through a scenario where we had to close our eyes and the employee actually unplugged different things and had us come back and we had to figure out what had happened. And so that was a scenario that we worked through. Of course, the other thing right now is about people not complying with the mask requirement. We actually do have to let people in to vote even if they are not wearing a mask.

What if there’s a problem?

So they definitely aren’t just sending us out there and saying you guys can deal with it. There’s going to be a help desk set up in Alameda County where we can call them on Election Day and get better instructions. There’s a video chat feature so that if there’s a problem with the voting machines, we can actually just get direct instruction … so they can see what’s happening.

How did it feel to be inside the polling place over the weekend?

In these times, you don’t really get to interact with many people. … Especially because of where my polling location is, we are seeing a lot of students and younger people.

And there’s been a lot of talk about young voters. And so it’s just really fantastic to see, you know, all those people really making an effort to vote. … It’s really amazing to see all these people taking the time out of their day to come to a polling location and vote.

What’s stood out to you the most from this experience so far?

A lot of people don’t know about poll workers and how, you know, poll working actually exists. And, you know, I’ve been to polling locations before with my parents when they voted, but I didn’t really realize that people could actually do that and it was a job that community members can be involved in. And so I think it’s just sort of opened up my mind to a lot of [the] different opportunities there are to help in democracy. And it really isn’t just a very small set of people that can help. We can all do something.