New Hampshire poll workers worried about safety before Election Day, "they call it toxic"
DERRY, N.H. - There's just over a week until Election Day and officials in New Hampshire are not only under added pressure to ensure a fair and safe process, they're also struggling to find people willing to work as poll workers.
"We're putting the test ballots through the machine, we do have to put them through four times," said Derry Town Clerk Tina Guilford.
"We're here to do our jobs"
It's the kind of safeguards she said are built into the election process. Test ballots in eight machines are inserted several times, the numbers between the machines have to match. The machine head is then sealed until Election Day and Guilford said she's feeling more scrutiny than ever before.
"We're not here to play partisan politics, we're here to do our jobs," said Guilford.
Doing the job hasn't been easy and Guilford said it's even a struggle to get poll workers to work on election night.
"A lot of people have told me that they've worked elections in the past and they're just not interested because of the environment because they call it toxic," said Guilford.
Political tensions are high since former President Donald Trump lost re-election in 2020 and claimed the election was stolen. It's cast suspicion on election workers and Guilford has felt it.
"I've been called a communist, fascist, not pleasant," said Guilford. "They're unhappy and they're taking it out on the person they can get a hold of."
Pledging transparency
At Manchester City Hall, the line was nearly out the door Friday with voters registering. There's high interest in an election that has also prompted calls to Elections Manager Thomas Hilton, who said he can only pledge transparency.
"I understand where these people are coming from, that it's their process," said Hilton. "I think people are concerned, they want to know their vote is counting, as it should be. And so, I completely respect that and I'm glad that we can answer those questions for those people."
Newly trained poll worker Jim Dietzel said he wants to be part of the process.
"If I, as a regular citizen, who's not an insider, can go out and tell the public no, everything is really on the up and up here, I think it gives people a lot of confidence," said Dietzel.
There's no early voting in New Hampshire, just absentee ballots, so Election Day is expected to be particularly busy.
