DALLAS — Texas election workers are training and bracing for the impact of early voters who will make their way to the polls starting on Tuesday.
Spectrum News went inside a Dallas County Elections Office for a firsthand look at how poll workers are training ahead of the March primary.
Nancy Goehl attended a Monday morning training session and says she’s serving as a clerk for early voting and as a judge on primary election day.
“We’ll be very well prepared. They’re very good at training us here,” Goehl said, following the session. “I started doing it when I was working full time and Tuesday happened to be my day off, so it was a way I could contribute while I was working. Now, I’m retired, so I can do more.”
Robert Franklin, another poll worker, said he has worn many election worker hats over the years and now serves as an election judge.
“I’m most concerned about local elections, because what government does. It’s at the local government that affects us more than anything else.”
Goehl and Franklin are among the thousands of poll workers training for the primary election in Dallas County, where voters will cast ballots at 74 polling locations.
“What we have right now are two primary elections happening: the Republican primary and the Democratic primary,” said Nicholas Solorzano, a Dallas County elections communications manager.
In a break from the joint tables in prior elections, each county chose its own polling method. This year, Dallas County opted for separate machines for each party.
Solorzano said the county is prepared to handle a 100% turnout, checking for identifications, logging in voters, setting up equipment and troubleshooting. He said they started training about 3,000 poll workers several weeks ago and that training will continue until Election Day.
“Our election day workers tend to be election workers that come back every election, so they’re really seasoned judges, really seasoned clerks,” Solorzano added.
Spectrum News reached out to the top 10 most populous counties in the State of Texas from El Paso to Harris County. Election officials are urging Texans to come prepared. To avoid long wait times in Tarrant County, officials said voters can check the website before heading to the polls.
“The only challenge we may have is the fact that a lot of people are used to voting countywide, and this time, if you’re voting day of, you’ll have to be sure where your precinct is voting,” a poll worker said.
Early voting begins Tuesday, Feb. 17, and runs through Feb. 27. The primary election is set to take place on March 3.