Boone County will operate 74 polling places for Tuesday's midterm, which means about 600 poll workers are needed to help staff them.
Poll workers, also called election judges, are critical to the smooth functioning of polling places on Election Day.
"They make sure that everything is up and running when the polls open at 6 a.m., they manage the polls throughout the day, they check in voters, they make sure that everybody has the opportunity to vote," Boone County Clerk Brianna Lennon said.
"They work in bipartisan teams to make sure that we have integrity in the entirety of the process."
Election judges work in bipartisan teams in accordance with Missouri law. The law states that there should be at least two judges from each major political party at each polling place, that no party can have a majority of judges at any polling place, and that each polling place should have two supervisors, one from each party.
"Their role is really integral to making sure elections happen," Lennon said.
"They can't interfere with the polling process, they can't interfere with our poll workers that are trying to check in voters. They can observe, they can make notes, they can bring things to my attention if they need to, but they cannot prevent a voter from voting."Briana Lennon
One of those supervisors is Scott Joffe, who has been a poll worker since 2014. In addition to working the polls on Election Day, Joffe also trains new poll workers in the weeks leading up to the election.
"The day of the election is a lot of fun for me," Joffe said. "I get to check everybody in, see lots of faces, know I've done a good thing for democracy in America."
Boone County residents may also see poll watchers or poll challengers when they go to vote. Poll watchers and challengers are volunteers from either party who are registered with the County Clerk to observe the casting and counting of votes.
"They can't interfere with the polling process, they can't interfere with our poll workers that are trying to check in voters," Lennon said. "They can observe, they can make notes, they can bring things to my attention if they need to, but they cannot prevent a voter from voting."
Like election judges, the roles of poll watchers and challengers are detailed in Missouri law. Poll challengers can be present until the ballots have all been cast, while poll watchers observe the votes being counted. In fact, the process of vote counting is open to any member of the public.
"We feel that elections in Missouri and Boone County are secure in general," said Tony Lupo, chair of the Boone County Republicans. "But that being said, both parties should be interested in election security and making sure they stay that way locally."
"Making sure elections run smoothly should not just be a concern when there are problems," he said.
Both Lennon and Joffe said they hadn't encountered issues with poll watchers or challengers.
"By and large, our experience with challengers and watchers has been that it's been very quiet," Lennon said. "People usually walk away with a better understanding about the way that the process works. And they tend to find out pretty quickly how mundane the process actually is."
