The Hidalgo County Democratic Party is hoping to recruit election workers for the upcoming primary runoff election after staffing shortages caused the party to shut down election sites during the March 1 primary.
The party is seeking about 400 workers to man the 80 election sites for the runoff election scheduled for May 24, according to Hidalgo County Democratic Party Chair Patrick Eronini.
The party’s recruitment efforts come after the party closed polling locations in the cities of Palmview, La Joya and Peñitas, citing a shortage of workers to operate those sites.
“There will be a runoff election and if we don’t have enough people, I’ll have to close some locations again,” Eronini said, adding that it was difficult to find enough people willing to work an entire day for a wage of $12 an hour.
In these situations, he said the party always tries to keep the same people that worked during the initial primary election but noted that they are under no obligation to work.
Many of their staffing shortages during the primary, he said, were due to the COVID-19 pandemic which largely effected the elderly population.
“Most of the judges who work the polls typically are elderly, retired people,” Eronini said. “They have more time to spend … not somebody who has a full-time job who’s young.”
The closure of the polling sites in those three cities drew harsh criticism from Hidalgo County Judge Richard F. Cortez who was running for, and won, the Democratic nomination for his current position.
Cortez faced two challengers including Norma Ramirez, who served as the Democratic Party chair until handing the reigns off to Eronini.
While the Hidalgo County Democratic and Republican parties run the election sites on Election Day, it is the county that that runs the polling sites during the early voting period.
Among Cortez’s criticisms was that some election sites in Edinburg and McAllen had more than enough workers for the Democratic Party to open additional sites on Election Day than the county originally had during the early voting period.
Eronini, however, said that he couldn’t force people to work at locations they didn’t want to.
“Some of these people are from certain communities,” he said. “I’m not going to pull people who volunteer from that community to send them to another community that has no volunteers.”
“All politics is local,” he said. “It’s the democratic process.”
Those interested in applying to be an election worker for the runoff election must be registered to vote in Hidalgo County.
Eronini asks that they submit their names, phone numbers, email addresses and home addresses to [email protected].
They can also contact Eronini at (956) 309-5315 if they have any questions.
