Polls statewide face shortage of Spanish-speaking workers

So it's less than two weeks until Election Day, and polling precincts across the state are having trouble meeting a Justice Department requirement, KHOU reports: There's a lack of Spanish-speaking poll workers in many Texas counties, and time is running out to find them.

“Although we have the ballot translated into Spanish and Vietnamese, that’s just part of the process,” said David Beirne, Harris County Election Commission. “There’s still a check-in process. There’s still the overall environment of making sure their federal voting rights that are guaranteed to them when they become naturalized are just as guaranteed as anyone else.”

The Justice Department mandates that any precinct with at least 100 Spanish last names has to have a bilingual poll worker who can translate for Spanish-speaking voters. In Harris County, 175 precincts — about 20 percent — still lack bilingual workers, and Fort Bend County still needs about 50 translators for half its precincts. The problem is the same elsewhere in Texas, Fort Bend County Elections Administrator J.R. Perez told Channel 11: "It's very difficult to get poll workers. It's a tough job. You've gotta be there a long day, and the pay is not as much as we'd like it to be."

Perez isn't kidding. Election Day officially begins at 6 a.m. and ends at 8 p.m., though voting only takes place between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.; though poll workers can come and go as they please as long as they're covered by someone else, election judges prefer that they work straight through. As for the pay: It's $6 an hour, meaning you'll earn $84 for the day. Still, we can hardly think of a more worthwhile way to spend 14 hours than greasing the wheels of democracy — especialmente si hablas español. If you're interested, apply to be a poll worker online.