JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
In order to conduct free and fair elections, you need poll workers. Officials have warned this year of a nationwide shortage as many older poll workers step back, and sometimes violent rhetoric might be scaring some away. So who's stepping up? Military veterans. NPR's Quil Lawrence reports.
QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: Dan Nelson leads a veterans' group in Boise, Idaho, called Mission43. He left for work one recent morning after a brief interrogation by his 8-year-old.
DAN NELSON: And he's asking me, what am I going to do today? I said, I'm going to set up an event to train poll workers so military veterans and military spouses can go learn to be poll workers.
LAWRENCE: Nelson's group was hosting an event for Vet The Vote, a campaign to train up poll workers nationwide.
NELSON: He's like, well, who are you going to tell them to vote for? And I'm like, that's not what it's about. And he's like, well, is it former president so and so or president so and so? I was like, no. I'm not telling anyone. That's the whole point - is people are required to offer people the freedom to vote the way they choose and to respect that vote of their community.
LAWRENCE: Respecting the vote is a concern for many Americans. Poll workers are getting threats, and political violence has risen since 2015. Nelson says his network of vets and families don't mind a little adversity or working a long day at the polls. The folks who showed up at this training event got to meet Idaho's secretary of state, who assured them that the election process is secure thanks to volunteers like them. Some of the potential poll workers have been out of the military quite a while.
MARSHA BRAVO: And I was attached to the 3-21st Engineer Battalion. I finished in 1984, so it's been 40 years.
LAWRENCE: That's Marsha Bravo who taught elementary school students about the democratic process over those past 40 years.
BRAVO: And so when I found out that there would be an opportunity maybe to learn more about the voting process and maybe even volunteer to be a poll worker, which I've never done, I decided I would come and see what it's all about.
LAWRENCE: Others have just finished up their military careers...
MATTHEW MCGARRY: I have more time now that I'm retired from the military, and it seemed like an appropriate way to continue service.
LAWRENCE: ...Like Matthew McGarry (ph).
MCGARRY: I think making sure that, like, we'll have continued faith in the results of those elections is one of the most important things we can do.
LAWRENCE: Vet The Vote started during the 2020 midterms. This cycle, recruiting got supercharged by support from NASCAR, the NBA and the NFL. Ellen Gustafson cofounded Vet The Vote. She says the goal was 100,000 volunteers.
ELLEN GUSTAFSON: And we have blown that out of the water and have recruited 161,000 veterans and military family members to serve again in their communities as poll workers.
LAWRENCE: She says they're from every state in the union, and many are return volunteers from the midterms.
GUSTAFSON: And over 80% of the people who signed up through us to serve said that it increased their trust in the American election system.
LAWRENCE: Which is important because there are some veterans volunteering this year, including several at the Idaho event, who said they want to be poll workers because they think the last election was stolen from Donald Trump. There's no evidence of that from any of the investigations by either party. Still, a recent NPR/PBS/Marist poll found a majority of Americans do worry about fraud this election. Gustafson says vets who have questions about the integrity of elections should volunteer.
GUSTAFSON: Learn how it does work. You know, make the elections happen with your own work. And so I actually think that that's good. We should be able to question systems. But if you're questioning them and you're not going to the source and actually getting real, on-the-ground truth about it, then, you know, keep yapping on Facebook, but I'm not that interested.
LAWRENCE: Gustafson says it's not too late to join up. Election officials will never complain about having too many people to call on. And with several swing states, like North Carolina and Georgia, recovering from recent storms, state election officials may need extra help on November 5. Quil Lawrence, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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