Phillips and Kile-Maxwell: Lawyer volunteers needed for free, fair elections

Volunteers are critically important to the smooth administration of elections in Indiana and across the country. Attorneys are particularly well-positioned to step into the flurry of Election Day as volunteers and help facilitate and ensure an efficient, free and fair election process.

In particular, the Marion County Election Board sponsors an election hotline, staffed mostly by lawyer volunteers, that is on-call on Election Day to resolve and assist with questions relating to the voting process raised by polling site inspectors, clerks and other volunteers facilitating an election. These lawyer volunteers can receive a wide variety of calls, including requests for technical support (for example, if a voting machine malfunctions), administrative support (for example, if a poll site volunteer fails to appear) and legal support. The most common legal support questions the volunteers field involve questions about voter registration and identification requirements (such as if a voter moves between registering to vote and Election Day) and polling site campaigning rules.

Brad Boswell, attorney at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and longtime Marion County Election Day volunteer, explained that the election hotline volunteers are engaged in a nonpartisan activity that is an extremely valuable service and something the board relies on to hold successful elections. “It is really vital that we have the hotline, because if we didn’t and inspectors or clerks run into an issue on Election Day, they need this resource so we can help figure out how to make sure the person can vote,” Boswell said.

For the most recent election on Nov. 7, an estimated 15 volunteers worked the election hotline. Ryan Mann, of counsel at Dentons Bingham Greenebaum, was one of them. He has volunteered on Election Day every year for the last seven years. Mann said he normally arrives by 5 a.m. and volunteers until after the polls close at 6 p.m.

Jessamine Pilcher, associate attorney at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, has volunteered with the election hotline since 2019. There are normally spikes in calls first thing in the morning, when the polls open, around lunchtime and then again at the end of the workday. Pilcher explained that when there is a lull in the volume of calls, volunteers can help with other Election Day activities, like processing and counting absentee ballots.

The board provides a one-hour training session in advance of Election Day and additional training materials, which Mann and Pilcher both recommended.

Mann said that his favorite part of his experience is engaging in complex problem-solving with other lawyers, and that he has “always loved Election Day and the opportunity to work with other volunteers (many of whom are also attorneys) to thoughtfully find answers to the questions that arise.” He also finds the work incredibly rewarding. “Many of us are nervous on Election Day and don’t know what to do with those nerves,” Mann said. “Channeling those feelings toward helping others vote is a great outlet for it.”

Pilcher likewise noted her deep appreciation of Election Day volunteers and the experience generally. “I never thought about the election process before I volunteered,” she said. But now, on the other side, she enjoys experiencing “the range of voting-related issues managed, questions answered, and the great lengths volunteers go in order to ensure that all eligible voters have the opportunity to vote and that process is fair and secure.”

The board is the government entity that is responsible for administering federal, state, county, city and school district elections in Marion County. That process requires an enormous amount of volunteers in addition to the lawyers volunteering for the election hotline. On Election Day, those volunteers might be counting ballots that arrived by mail or that were cast in person at an early voting site, or they might be working the polls as clerks or inspectors. Marion County has 186 voting sites, and each voting site requires at least one inspector (who runs the polling site) and two clerks (who check voters in). Clerks and inspectors are eligible to be paid a small amount for their work on Election Day. And there is a bipartisan aspect to the volunteer teams: Each polling site should have one clerk from each major political party, and the vote-counting teams must be bipartisan, too.

Kate Sweeney Bell, Marion County clerk, explained that for every election, even municipal elections, this process requires at least 3,000 volunteers, and likely more in presidential election years like 2024. She said that many election volunteers become engaged through political party channels (i.e., the Republican and Democratic parties of Indiana), but the board is also responsible for recruiting additional volunteers.

“From an administrative perspective, what’s really challenging for us is obviously recruiting enough people to work on Election Day and before, because we have satellite voting and things that are happening well before,” Patrick Becker, board director of elections, said. “Clerks across the state will tell you the same thing. We all want fair, honest people who are going to show up and do the same thing. You want both parties involved and you want oversight. You want fair, honest elections, and you don’t want to have your system and your process under scrutiny because of lack of staff.”

Bell echoed Becker’s sentiments, stressing that there are plenty of opportunities for people to get involved, even if they can only offer a couple of hours on Election Day or leading up to it. “We recruit how we can, when we can,” she said. “We don’t just hope for the best. We try and strive to be the best.”

Individuals interested in volunteering in Marion County on Election Day can sign up on pollworker.indy.gov or email [email protected]. Some volunteer positions are limited to Marion County residents, so individuals living outside Marion County should check with the clerk’s office in their county, but the poll worker structure (at least one inspector and two clerks per polling location) is standard across the state.•

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Rachel Phillips and Emily Kile-Maxwell are associates in the Indianapolis office of Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP. Opinions expressed are those of the authors.