Originally published by The 19th. The 19th is committed to covering the unfinished business of voting rights. Read more about how we’re approaching that in this pivotal election.

A surge in voter registrations following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 race is putting a spotlight on the need for poll workers — a temporary workforce that will be critical to running a smooth election on November 5.

Efforts to recruit poll workers also come at a time of heightened focus on the safety of election administrators and others stationed at polling precincts and ballot counting sites.

Civic engagement groups and election officials have been encouraging more everyday people to sign up to be poll workers. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), a federal agency that helps oversee elections issues, has deemed Thursday as National Poll Worker Recruitment Day for a collective day of action.

“The 2024 elections landscape has changed dramatically on a weekly, daily and sometimes hourly basis for the last month, and likely will continue to in the coming weeks,” said Marta Hanson with Power the Polls, a nonpartisan organization that helps recruit poll workers. “The one thing that will stay consistent, and the one thing that will stay true, is the need for the election itself to run smoothly.”

At least 142,000 people have registered to vote since Biden’s July 21 exit, according to Vote.org, an organization that tracks get-out-the-vote efforts. The group estimates voters between the ages of 18 and 34 account for more than 80 percent of the new registrations.

More than 775,000 poll workers assisted voters during the 2020 election, though Hanson said it takes about 1 million workers nationwide to staff a presidential election when taking into account the need for backup. It’s unclear how the jump in registered voters could impact the overall recruitment of poll workers, though some organizers say they’ve seen a spike in interest to sign up in recent weeks. The expansion of mail-in voting in some states since the 2020 election could also change that calculus of poll worker needs.

Power the Polls, which launched in 2020, says it recruited over 700,000 new potential poll workers during the last presidential election, and they aim to recruit more this cycle. Many poll workers are paid, though the scope of........

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