Philly officials keeping poll workers safe on Election Day
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Philadelphia officials are well on their way to filling the need for thousands of poll workers on Election day.
"Right now, we're a little over 6,000; 8,500 is full capacity," city commissioner Omar Sabir said.
On any given Election day, as many as 10,000 poll workers could be needed including language interpreters, to man more than 700 polling places throughout the city.
CBS3 sat down with city commissioner Omar Sabir to talk about this election cycle and about this year's historic pay raise to further incentivize poll workers.
"We get $250 when you go to class. If you're an interpreter you can make more than that," Sabir said. "We had a historical pay raie, it's the highest pay raise since around 1972."
While poll workers are continuing to be recruited just two weeks ahead of the Midterm election, Election officials are also faced with the challenge of ensuring their safety at a time when other cities have reported more volatility at polling locations.
"You have to be careful because you can't put law enforcement officers in polling locations because that would be a violation of the voter rights act, that actually intimidates voters," Sabir said.
All poll workers are equipped with cell phones and emergency contact numbers, and there are constant roving election office patrols checking on polling places throughout the city.
"We're working on coordinating. Safe to serve as a poll worker," Sabir said.
Not only is security a priority at polling places, but also at the new mail ballot processing center in Northeast Philadelphia. With hundreds of thousands of mail ballots expected to be counted on Election Day, this highly secured new facility will become the nucleus of activity on that day.
"The security in this building is to a standard that meets all the recommendations from homeland security, the FBI, state and city office of emergency management," city commissioner Lisa Deeley said. "You saw all the metal detectors all the doors are fobbed in this room. When it comes to security"
As of Thursday, Philadelphia has received 150,059 requests for a mail ballot and has had 60,777 returned. Pennsylvania does not allow counties to begin processing mail ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day.