• Requires 35,000 poll workers

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has appealed to more professionals to participate in the November 3, 2020 elections as poll workers as the state will require 35,000 poll workers to man the polling stations on election day.

In a response to the recent Ohio Supreme Court order that will give attorneys required continuing education credits for serving as precinct elections officials on November 3, 2020 when the state expects a poll worker shortage due to the coronavirus pandemic, Secretary of State Frank LaRose said “a lot of other professions have continuing education credits as well, teachers for example and architecture.”

“There are all kinds of professions that require continuing education and so we are working with all those different organizations to try to get continuing education for people to sign up to be poll workers.”

“The bottom line on all of this is that we need 35,000 poll workers so we can have enough people to open the polling places on election day.”

The Supreme Court of Ohio and the Ohio Judicial System requires active attorneys and attorneys registered for corporate status must complete 24 hours of accredited CLE activities every two years. Fulltime, part-time, and retired judges must complete 40 hours of accredited CLE activities. Magistrates and acting judges must complete 24 hours of accredited CLE activities every two years. Judges, acting judges, and magistrates also have a Judicial College requirement.

Secretary LaRose who spoke with a group of African American media executives said, “every lawyer is always working for ways to earn the continuing education credit, so a year and a half ago we started petitioning the supreme court to award continuing education credits for lawyers who sign up to be poll workers. They finally did and that is a great news to improve the poll.”

“We are trying anything we can. We are working with 17 years old in Ohio, we are working with high school teachers to try to get 17 years old to sign up. We are working with companies around Ohio and the businesspeople for workers to sign up, we call it give a day for democracy.”

He allayed fears by some people on the unemployment that if they are paid to be poll workers for one day that they are going to lose a portion of their unemployment compensation.

“We are trying to fix that, we are trying to get emergency ruled on by the Ohio Department of Family and Job Services that says if you are on unemployment we need you to sign up as a poll worker and if you do that you are not going to lose your unemployment benefits.”

Secretary LaRose assured that “Ohio is going to have what Ohioans are used to in the 2020 elections. Ohio voting is spread out. There will be four weeks of absenting voting, anybody that cannot come on the day of voting can vote by mail. Voting by mail is something every Ohioan can do; it is safe and secure. If you don’t want to vote by mail there is election day in-person voting. The same pattern will be available this year.”

“We will have a normal election even in this abnormal time.  We want to make sure Ohio has the highest participation it ever had.”