{"id":211406,"date":"2026-06-05T09:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T09:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/211406\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T09:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T09:38:09","slug":"student-poll-workers-help-run-elections-in-pennsylvania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/211406\/","title":{"rendered":"Student poll workers help run elections in Pennsylvania"},"content":{"rendered":"

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania\u2019s free newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve voted in person in Pennsylvania recently, you may have noticed that one of the poll workers checking you in was a high school student. And if you ask one of them why they wanted to be a poll worker, most will give a similar answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy school was offering it, and I thought it would be a good piece of money,\u201d explained Aiden Martinez, a student from Franklin Towne Charter High School in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

\"\"Aiden Martinez, a student from Franklin Towne Charter High School stands for a portrait at the state capitol after winning one of the Governor\u2019s Civic Engagement Awards in Harrisburg, Pa. on May 27, 2026. (Kriston Jae Bethel for Votebeat) <\/p>\n

But, once the allure of a paycheck and a day off school has faded away, they\u2019ll tell you something else as well: They enjoy getting to see the voting process up close.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kept going back afterward because it was interesting to see everyone in my community \u2026 and how seriously they took voting,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cIt kind of inspired me to come back, and for my last year that I worked there, I voted too.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Pennsylvania, 17-year-olds are eligible to be poll workers, and each year high school students staff voting sites across the state. And they\u2019re not just stuck in corners or being sent to fetch coffee, either; they are meaningfully involved in running the polls. <\/p>\n

Advocates of the practice say it both helps counties fill a staffing gap and gives students valuable life experience.<\/p>\n

Vote smart(er) with Votebeat Pennsylvania’s newsletter.<\/p>\n

Get the latest news on voting and elections in the Keystone State delivered to your inbox for free every other Thursday.<\/p>\n

In Lebanon County, student poll workers have become an integral part of the county\u2019s Election Day workforce. During the May 2026 primary, students made up 13% of all poll workers, and Jamie Shoemaker, the county\u2019s poll worker coordinator, said she\u2019s trying to increase that number.<\/p>\n

Shoemaker had hands-on experience with the program before taking it over full time. Shoemaker was a pollworker in her mother\u2019s precinct before joining the county elections office, and one year her own high school aged daughter helped out as well. Her daughter, she said, ended up enjoying the experience.<\/p>\n

That was in 2019, when Lebanon County was mainly working with Lebanon High School to find students to work the polls. But after Shoemaker began working at the county elections department full time, she expanded the program to other high schools in the area. The county now averages about 50 to 55 student poll workers each election.<\/p>\n

The students do all types of jobs in the polling place, from checking voters in to keeping track of turnout and helping voters feed their ballots into tabulation machines. <\/p>\n

Many non-student poll workers in Lebanon \u2014 and nationally \u2014 skew older. And as elections become more technologically integrated with devices such as electronic pollbooks, older poll workers sometimes struggle to adapt.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving the student there helps bridge that tech gap,\u201d she said. \u201cThey can just look at it and know [what the issue is].\u201d<\/p>\n

Keith Rolon is the cooperative education teacher at Lebanon High School and manages the school\u2019s student poll worker program. His goal is to have two students at each of the city\u2019s polling sites, including at least one who is bilingual to help translate for the city\u2019s large Spanish-speaking population.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me as a civics teacher, it was important for me to show them voting is important and elections are safe and here\u2019s what goes into them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also an opportunity for students to learn valuable life skills like self-advocacy that Rolon said can\u2019t be learned in the classroom. During the primary, as he does every Election Day, he traveled around to all the polling places in the city to check on his students.<\/p>\n

At the Lebanon County Senior Center in the city\u2019s 10th ward, he stopped in to see senior Ella Whalen and junior Emely Liriano. Whalen was recording which voters came in on a numbered list, and Liriano was seated next to her checking them in on the polling place\u2019s e-pollbook.<\/p>\n

The judge of elections gave Rolon a positive review of their performance so far, and Rolon reminded them it was their responsibility to speak up for themselves when it was time for them to take a break or get lunch.<\/p>\n

Whalen and Liriano agreed the money they got from working the polls was nice, but the act of being civically engaged was appealing too. Their parents are politically active, and Whalen said it was good to help out.<\/p>\n

It was both Whalen\u2019s and Liriano\u2019s first time working an election, and although turnout was rather low (as usual for a primary), they said they still learned about the voting process.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt surprised me how quick it was,\u201d Liriano said. \u201cYou just go in, you check off the boxes, you put [the ballot] in the thing, and then you leave. I didn\u2019t even know there was a machine that you just put your ballots in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Students from Franklin Towne Charter High School walk out before receiving the Governor\u2019s Civic Engagement Awards at the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pa. on May 27, 2026. (Kriston Jae Bethel for Votebeat) <\/p>\n

Diane Gordian, the civic engagement and language access engagement coordinator for the Pennsylvania Department of State, helps organize student poll worker programs across Pennsylvania. She said a benefit of the programs is that they help students, and importantly also their families, build habits of democratic engagement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose students come home and say, \u2018Hey Mom and Dad, I want to do this,\u2019 and that gets those parents motivated, not only to register to vote, but they sign up to be poll workers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt hands one of the Governor\u2019s Civic Engagement Awards, to a student from Franklin Towne Charter High School at the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pa. on May 27, 2026. (Kriston Jae Bethel for Votebeat) <\/p>\n

The state is still tallying numbers from the primary, but Gordian said she expects this year to have the highest-ever rate of students serving as poll workers.<\/p>\n

Each year, the state honors certain students and their schools with the Governor\u2019s Civic Engagement Award for registering eligible student voters and for working as poll workers.<\/p>\n

Martinez, from Franklin Towne Charter High School, was one of the 633 students who received that award this year<\/a>, and he and eight of his peers recently spoke about their experiences at a press conference with Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt.<\/p>\n

Kayla Marshall, another student at Franklin Towne Charter, said the poll worker programs give students a chance to actually experience civic engagement rather than just hearing about it \u201cin a PowerPoint at 8 in the morning while trying not to fall asleep.\u201d Marshall worked the polls in three elections starting in November 2024.<\/p>\n

\"\"Kayla Marshall delivers remarks on the Governor\u2019s Civic Engagement Awards, alongside fellow students from Franklin Towne Charter High School at the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pa. on May 27, 2026. (Kriston Jae Bethel for Votebeat) <\/p>\n

\u201cWorking the polls taught me more than just how elections work,\u201d she said. \u201cIt taught me responsibility, teamwork, patience, and the importance of giving back. It also showed me that young people don\u2019t have to wait until \u2018someday\u2019 to make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[16473,37,28,30,29,85],"class_list":["post-211406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-capitol","tag-harrisburg","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}