Iowa voters going to the polls on Election Day this November may be surprised by how many younger faces are greeting them as precinct election officials. I don’t know yet whether my face (behind a mask) will be one of them. 
In August I was inspired to become a poll worker for Election Day after seeing a press release from the Iowa secretary of state’s office urging working-age Iowans to consider filling in for older Iowans who may be hesitant to work this year due the pandemic. After not hearing back, I called the Polk County Election Office last week to check whether they had received my application. 
Steve Mauro, Polk County deputy auditor, said the response by Polk County voters to train as poll workers has been “overwhelming.” It’s been so crazy, in fact, that he stopped trying to respond personally to all the applicants, he told me. (Turns out that as of last week there were sufficient poll workers, so I’ve been put on a waiting list to be called if there are cancellations.) 
Mauro noted that this is his fourth general election in which he has coordinated poll workers for the county. “They [the secretary of state’s office] made my job easy,” he said, “because we are asking people to work a 15- to 17-hour day.” 
Mauro declined to estimate how many new workers there may be compared with the faithful regulars, but he said he thinks there will be “a nice blend of veterans and newcomers for the general election.”  
Precinct election officials are trained to check in voters, make sure they have the correct ballot, answer questions and help ensure elections run smoothly in each precinct. And they’re paid, unless they already are receiving their regular pay from their employer by using their paid time off. 
Since June 1, the secretary of state’s office has had 3,065 applications statewide for poll workers submitted on its website form, according to Kevin Hall, the agency’s communications director. 
“We’ve also had a few counties who are in need of more people ask us to do specific Facebook targeting for people in their counties to help recruit more poll workers,” he wrote in an email. “Those initiatives are in progress and we have a few more [counties] who are interested.”  
If you’ve thought about serving as a poll worker, visit Pollworker.Iowa.gov to learn more.