With the election coming up in November and the COVID-19 pandemic causing disruptions, many groups and commmunities are increasing their focus on vote-by-mail options. While that increased focus is justified, that action alone is insufficient to protect the right to vote in the 2020 elections. Failure to ensure safe, accessible in-person voting risks further disenfranchising many Americans, especially those in marginalized groups. We believe that the expansion of voting by mail must be coupled with resources to address local operational gaps that will make voting in person increasingly difficult.

Due in large part to COVID 19, our election system is facing a critical shortage of poll workers to staff the polls in 2020. Recruiting poll workers, who work to ensure the in-person voting process operates safely and efficiently, is challenging even in normal times. Today, COVID-19 has exacerbated the difficulties typically associated with poll worker recruitment: a large proportion of poll workers tend to be senior citizens, a vulnerable population during this pandemic that will, with good reason, likely refrain from working the polls in November.

To address this issue, Carnegie Mellon University, in collaboration with the Voter Protection Corps, developed a “voting risk assessment” tool by collecting and analyzing public data to determine which counties in eight key states (Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin) will need the most support in recruiting poll workers to ensure the right to vote. Though thorough poll worker recruitment will require a large-scale intervention from many organizations and governments across the country in this election, our tool analysis enables organizations to understand:

• Demand (for In-Person Voting Resources): How many voters will be impacted by same-day in-person voting issues in each county?
• Supply (of In-Person Voting Resources) : What types of resource constraints and challenges exist related to in-person voting including locations, machines, and poll workers?
• Poll Worker Recruiting Difficulty: What challenges have counties faced in the past as they recruited poll workers?
• Priority Population: What is the extent to which vulnerable populations are going to be affected by these voting barriers?

We used the indicators listed above to identify counties with gaps that make them high-priority targets for immediate poll worker recruiting efforts. While our tool uses existing data and focuses on certain types of voting risks, it is flexible enough to incorporate additional data generated by campaigns and voter outreach groups as they launch voter registration, GOTV, and poll worker recruiting efforts and inform various voter protection efforts including poll worker recruiting, getting additional polling locations and machines. Equipped with this understanding, voter protection organizations can allocate their resources efficiently, create a call to action, and ultimately provide targeted support in their priority counties.