Iowa poll workers face increased scrutiny, criticism

Editor’s note: The number of Linn County polling places that originally appeared in this story has been updated.

As a U.S. Postal Service employee for nearly 30 years, Iowa City resident Chuck Murphy was used to dealing with disgruntled customers questioning the status of their mail.

So, after retiring from his post office job in 2012 and picking up a side hobby working elections for the Johnson County Auditor’s Office, he was prepared to deal with voters questioning poll workers and the legitimacy of local elections.

“I’ve had my fair share of confrontations with people — in an ‘Iowa nice’ sort of way,” Murphy joked.

Murphy, 71, is among the thousands of Iowans expected to work at polls in Tuesday’s primary. After serving as a poll worker and precinct chairman, Murphy is now an election “rover,” a position he’s held for five years. He’s the go-to person for answering worker questions and taking care of any equipment issues at six Johnson County election precincts.

He was inspired to become an election worker after seeing his mother do it when he was a child.

“She enjoyed it dearly, and after I worked my first election, I could see the camaraderie among my fellow workers,” Murphy said. “It’s a pretty comfortable atmosphere.”

When he delivers voting machines during election season, Murphy said it isn’t uncommon for people to stop him and question the machines' reliability.

“The biggest question that's asked of me is, ‘Are those ballots really right?’. Or ‘Do you have any hanging chads?’. You know, questions like that about election security,” Murphy said. “I love answering those because I'm 100 percent positive that elections in Johnson County are honest and not tampered.”

While Murphy enjoys this back-and-forth with residents, many poll workers don’t feel the same way. He said he knows of some election workers who have left the job because they don’t want to deal with voters' criticism.

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A recent Brennan Center survey found that 38 percent of local election workers nationally had experienced threats, harassment, or abuse during the course of their work. Much of this stems from the 2020 presidential election when some Republicans — including former President Donald Trump — pushed conspiracy theories that spread misinformation and disinformation about the integrity of U.S. elections.

During a press conference about election security last week, Cait Conley, a senior adviser to the director at the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), noted the threats poll workers have faced.

“This is not who we are as a country, as Americans. We are better than this," said Conley, who appeared with Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate. “And as a veteran, I want to thank these brave and selfless election officials who stand steadfast in their commitment to the security and integrity of the American democratic process.”

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Johnson County Auditor Travis Weipert, a Democrat, said in recent years, he has seen longtime election workers choose to step away from the job for many reasons, including the increased scrutiny.

“(Some) poll workers were just like, ‘I don’t want to deal with this’,” Weipert said.

"Nobody wants to be those two women in Georgia who received death threats for being poll workers," Linn County Auditor Joel Miller said. "Most people just want to do their civic duties and work the election without fanfare."

Weipert said he also lost some election workers after the Iowa Legislature, in 2021, passed a bill to increase penalties for county auditors or other election officials who violate election laws or fail to follow guidance from the secretary of state. Weipert said many potential election workers were hesitant to work due to the magnitude of these fines, which could be $10,000.

"Even though we tell them not to worry about it, they're still afraid that if they make one little mistake, they're going to be on the front page of the news in handcuffs," Weipert said. "Many workers opted out."

‘Everything we do is open to the public’

Weipert said in every election since 2020, a handful of voters have called the office and complained about election workers doing something wrong or acting suspiciously. When his department is questioned about how it handles elections, Weipert said he invites skeptics to visit a precinct and observe how things are run.

"Everything we do is open to the public," Weipert said. "We have to publish it, and you can come in and watch us test all the machines, so you know that if you put a ballot in and the oval's filled in for Trump, it doesn't get changed to Biden automatically when it's run through the machine."

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Adams County Auditor Rebecca Bissell is president of the Iowa State Association of County Auditors. She said residents with questions about the election process should go directly to their county auditor and not rely on unvetted information they find online.

“Not a single one of us will back down from a tough question,” said Bissell, a Republican. “We hold the standards of the elections up to the highest degree, and we just want the voters to be as educated in our process as possible.”

In his run-ins with voters, Murphy said most of the time, there isn’t any animosity in their tone and that many of them are genuinely curious about how secure the machines are.

“Many of the people hear about election fraud happening in other parts of the country, and the folks I’ve talked to want to know if that’s happening here locally, and it’s just not,” Murphy said.

Thousands of poll workers needed for each election

With 79 polling places in Linn County, Miller said he expects upward of 300 workers for Tuesday’s primary election. In Johnson County, which has 64 polling places, Weipert said his office plans to have a minimum of four workers at each site, although some will require more depending the location and size of the building.

Both Miller and Weipert said their counties anticipate double the number of poll workers for November's general election. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate told The Gazette in 2022 that the state needs around 10,000 poll workers for every general election.

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Despite hesitancy from some people to work elections, Miller and Weipert said they have not struggled to find enough people to work upcoming elections.

“I think you see many people stepping up to protect democracy,” Weipert said. “(New workers) saw people leaving because of what was happening, and they’re like, ‘Well, that’s not good, maybe I should do it.”

Bissell, in Adams County, said poll workers are not election officials, and many are simply trying to get out of the house for a few hours and make some money in the process.

“The poll workers are our neighbors. They are there our friends and family right here in the community that are doing the front line work of elections,” she said. “If you can't trust your family, friends, or neighbors, who can you trust?”

Comments: (319)-265-6889; cooper.worth@thegazette.com