Elections: Poll Worker Management
From Searching to Mailing Letters
To add and manage your election workers (aka poll workers) for any election, go to Elections > Election Workers. This will take you to the election worker search screen. To identify potential poll workers, simply use any of the search fields to make it as narrow or broad as you would like. For instance, when looking for a pool of candidates to choose from you could conduct a search based on a specific precinct, people that will be voting at a particular polling place and/or those that have previous poll worker experience . Again, any of the fields can be used to conduct a search.
Adding Poll Workers to a Polling Place: After identifying a voter, double-click on their name to access their election worker record and give them an assignment. To make an assignment, go to assignment details at the bottom of the page and enter the election that they will be working on, the position that they will be holding and polling place that they will be working at. Finally, select the add button. This will add this record to the table above. To delete a record, select it (one mouse-click) and select the delete button.
In the example below, Mr. Adams will be working the Western States Primary as a poll book clerk at the Grand County Courthouse. As long as this record is selected, you can make changes to it.
Tracking Spending: To enter the amounts of what you will be paying a poll worker, place your cursor in the corresponding field and insert the amount. The total will be calculated for you. Make sure to select the save button at the bottom of the page. This will allow you to generate payment reports in the reports section of VISTA.
Additional Details
As you can see, there are a number of additional fields that you can use to manage the information of a particular poll worker. Keep in mind that if you make changes to the election worker section at the top of the page that you will need to select the save button at the top of the page. To save changes to the assignment details section at the bottom of the page, select the save button at the bottom of the page. For instance, if a poll worker cannot work an election, you will want to select the cancel button and select the reason why from the corresponding dropdown box.
Keeping Notes: To keep notes on poll worker, first select the date button, type the message under the date that has just been inserted for you and select the save button.
Viewing a Poll Workers Registration Record: If you want to view their registration record, select the voter button.
Preferred Position: As the title suggest, you can choose what position they prefer to hold.
Go to Polling Place: This will provide a detailed listing of the polling place.
The Five Tabs: Managing Election Worker Information
Assignments: This is the default screen that appears when you initially enter the election worker record. This is where you give them an assignment and track their expenses.
Positions: As you might recall, when you create an election plan you have the option of entering how many of each position you would like at a polling place. If you used this option you would see the position title and number of people needed for a specific polling place. If you didn't, you won't see this information. Again, this option is provided to serve as a guide for you, but it isn't required.
By using the dropdown boxes you can see who you have assigned to an election by polling place. Select the criteria and select the show button. You can also repeat the same steps for taking notes on this screen/tab that you did on the assignment screen/tab
Training: To track the training that a poll worker has received, select this tab. Make the desired selections and selct the new button to insert the record into their history. To delete an entry, select the record and select the delete record. To make a change to it, select the record, make the change(s) and then select the save button. When creating an entry you can choose all or some of the fields. The choice is yours.
Mailings: This is great tool for tracking the mailings that have been sent to a poll worker. You can enter them manually here or go to "mail to election workers" on the election workers search screen. The latter method is highly recommended. We will talk about this in a bit.
To manually insert an entry, select the add mailing button and then insert the desired information by placing your cursor in the text fields of the entry. To delete the entry, select it and select the delete mailing button.
Call Log: Peform the same steps that you would when adding and deleting an entry in the mailings and training tabs.
