DSW Election Worker Program

About the Program

Category: County Administration and Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk (RR/CC) continually strives to provide voters with a pleasant voting experience at Vote Centers. To meet this goal, the RR/CC continues to leverage the participation of County employees to serve as Election Workers at Vote Centers via the voluntary County Employee Election Worker Program (CEEWP). The CEEWP was originally implemented in 1998 to alleviate Election Worker shortages while allowing county employees to provide a civic service in their community. Despite the success of the program, Election Worker shortages in the March 2020 Presidential Primary Election coupled with recruitment challenges presented by the COVID-19 environment required the RR/CC to make structural staffing changes for the November 2020 Presidential General Election.To address Election Worker recruitment challenges and/or potential shortages, the Board of Supervisors temporarily suspended the voluntary CEEWP and adopted the Disaster Service Worker (DSW) Election Worker Program. The DSW Program allowed departments to deploy County employees as Election Workers. As a result, there was 100% County department participation, DSWs filled Election Worker shortages in all communities and with bilingual needs, and county employee attendance rates were much higher than in past elections. Most importantly, voters were provided with adequate service at the Vote Center.