Southwestern Pennsylvania counties gather poll workers for Election Day

Preparing for an election is like preparing for a theatre production, said Marybeth Kuznik, election director in Fayette County.

“You have to get all the equipment. You have to get the people in place, the cast, the poll workers. You have to make sure everything's prepared, and people have to learn their roles,” Kuznik said. “And you have an opening -- the one performance day -- you know, opening day, and that's Election Day.”

The Nov. 3 General Election will decide the future resident of the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion in a race between Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, Republican Treasurer Stacy Garrity and Libertarian Ken Krawchuk.  

All 203 seats in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives are up for election. The outcome will decide if Democrats will continue to hold a house majority for a fifth consecutive year.

In the Republican controlled Senate, 25 seats are up for election. The last time Democrats held senate majority was in 1993, according to Ballotpedia.

In Fayette County, Kuznik is preparing to see a 50% to 60% voter turnout. This year, she's focused on training poll workers on new ballot scanner machines purchased through an Act 88 integrity grant.

In Fayette County, she has 310 poll workers signed up for the General Election. There are 66 precincts, and the election code requires that three poll workers are at each.  

“We've had sometimes [where] we've been really shorthanded,” Kuznik said. “Like I said, it was 4 o'clock on the day before the election, and we were still looking for poll workers, but I think things are improving."

She said more people are volunteering because they have become more politically aware. Although, precincts that are smaller with less registered voters are still difficult to staff.

Gianna Shultz is the precinct and poll worker coordinator for the Bureau of Elections in Butler County, which has 95 precincts.  

Precincts that have a higher population are easier to staff because usually they have more interest. If a precinct only has 100 registered voters, and between one and three of those voters aren’t interested in volunteering, Shultz said they must outsource.

“We have a lot of cross over with people who live in one precinct but work in another because their precinct might not need staff, but one five miles up the road does,” Shultz said.

In Fayette, Kuznik said that there is a precinct with just 22 registered voters.

“Our biggest precinct, I believe, has about nine people working there because they have several thousand voters, and our smallest precinct only has 22 [voters],” Kuznik said. There was a lady that ran the small precinct for years until she died. “For this election, we're actually having to combine that precinct into another nearby township and have that board handle both of them until we can recruit somebody from that borough.”

When it gets slow on Election Day, Kuznik said that poll workers sometimes bring something to do like knitting, or schoolwork. Even if all 22 registered voters showed up to vote at that precinct, the workers would need to stay, “till bitter end.”

In nine years as elections director in Washington County, Melanie Ostrander said a lot has changed. From updating to electronic poll books, to when mail-in voting opened up to more Pennsylvanians in 2019.

As of Oct. 8, the Washington County Election Office has received about 16,000 mail-in ballots out of 22,000 sent. According to Ostrander, approximately 600 volunteers are signed up to be staff at 156 precincts on Nov. 3.  

"We are not allowed in Pennsylvania to open mail-in ballots and begin counting until 7:00 a.m. Election Day,” she said. “We have a team that is here on-site, opening and counting those on Election Day.”

On Nov. 3, mail-in ballots will be accepted until 8 p.m. Whether someone comes in person to turn in a ballot or if the last mail delivery to the elections office arrives at 7:59 p.m., those votes can still be counted.

Counties are always looking for poll workers. There is no deadline to sign up, although to work during the General Election, a poll worker must attend at least one training class.

The last formal class in Fayette County is Oct. 27.

“Now if somebody wanted to do it after that, I mean we would train them," Kuznik said. "You know, we’re not going to turn people away if we need them and they want to work.

“We need people to step up because [...] If we don't have poll workers, we don't have an election.”

Sharon Russell has been a poll worker for 18 years; It is her 13th year as judge of elections at Cranberry West 3 in Butler County. If a poll worker calls in sick the last minute before Election Day, she calls her husband for backup.

“If last minute someone gets sick or whatever, I know I have somebody,” Russell said. “Otherwise, he just gets coffee for all of us.”

Deb Felak is the Judge of Elections in Hopewell Township, Washington County.  

“I've been a minority [inspector], majority inspector or judge of elections since 1996,” Felak said. “So, this is my 31st year.

"This is a great way to connect with your neighbors. That is what drives me to do this. This is my community. This is where I grew up, moved away, and have come back to."

Poll worker Mike Hnath wasn’t involved in his local elections until 2004, when he complained to the election bureau about having three precincts vote in one building. So, he suggested creating a polling place closer to where he lives in southwestern Adams Township.

“So, we ended up using my community center for a polling place,” Hnath said. “He said, ‘Good, I'm going to have you do it, but guess what? You’re gonna run it.’ That’s how I volunteered.”

Hnath called voting a civic duty.

“If you want to complain about what's going on or want things to go a certain way, then you should go out and vote,” Hnath said.

Russell agreed.

“If they like to talk politics, they better vote because they have no right to complain or say anything if they don't vote,” she said. “And they should try to be informed with their vote. But hey, that's not up to me. I'm there so they can vote.”

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Cassandra Harris is a reporter with the Pittsburgh Media Partnership newsroom.  A spring 2026 graduate of Point Park University, Cassandra interned at Pittsburgh Magazine, Pittsburgh Latino Magazine, and The Homepage Newspaper. Reach her at cassandra.harris@pointpark.edu.

‍The PMP Newsroom is a regional news service that focuses on government and enterprise reporting in southwestern Pennsylvania. Find out more information on foundation and corporate funders here.

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Header image: Butler County Bureau of Elections Precinct and Poll Worker Coordinator Gianna Shultz shows the Dos and Don’ts of how to pack voting equipment at a poll worker training on Oct. 14 at the Cranberry Township Municipal Center.Photo by Cassandra Harris / PMP Newsroom.