With Election Day quickly approaching, Bernalillo County is issuing a call for poll workers to work at voting stations.

“We’re in desperate need of poll workers,” Linda Stover, Bernalillo County County Clerk, told KRQE News.

Stover said the county is short 742 poll workers, creating a bigger need than in past election years.

“Some of our people are older," she told KRQE News. "In fact, most of them are older, and they’re just getting too old to come and work long hours. COVID scared some. So we need to refresh this. We used to have about a 3,000 backlog of people we could call, and that’s gone way, way down.”

To attract more poll workers, the county is talking to service organizations to call up past volunteers. Stover is confident the county will be able to secure enough poll workers in time for the elections. If not, county staff will be diverted to the clerk’s office to help with elections.

“Our elections are run by our citizens, by our residents of Bernalillo County,” Stover told KRQE. “Once you do this, you’ll understand the process and you’ll understand really and truly just how open and complete and transparent it is.”

The election process has been scrutinized in recent years with defeated politicians claiming fraud. Stover said serving as a poll worker can offer a true glimpse of what takes place during an election.

“With all the hullabaloo going around right now about elections, it’s great to have people come in and look and see what we’re doing,” Stover said, according to KRQE News. “The more eyes on an election, the better it is.”

Anyone interested in being a poll worker must be at least 18 years old, a U.S. citizen and a resident of Bernalillo County. Visit the Bernalillo County Clerk's website or call 243-VOTE, option 4, for more information.

Absentee voting starts on Tuesday, Oct. 11. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.