My county in Washington (King County) has elections up to four times a year: a general (fall) a primary (late summer) and, if needed, two special elections (winter and spring.) I actually didn’t know this until I got called to work at the elections!
Many election positions are PAID…not volunteer! Of course, this varies depending on where you live, but you can get some extra money as an election worker. My particular county is now vote-by-mail, so instead of the short-term gig of learning how to man the polls and then working the day of, they need people to verify addresses, answer phones, and staff the accessible voting centers. I’ve even been hired to voice the audio ballots for the hearing impaired!
Government work is fairly easy to get, but you will need to pass a background check and jump through a lot of hoops. Once you get it, though, if you do a good job, you could be called back for other assignments. If you’re bilingual, you might just get more work to help translate ballots, candidate descriptions, posters and other printed materials.
I’ve worked four or five election cycles at this point, in various departments. If you’re interested in this type of work you can check out your local government website to see if they’re hiring and how to get started.
