The Vet the Vote Coalition says it has recruited its 130,000th election poll worker from the veteran and military family community for the 2024 elections.
The achievement exceeds the organization’s goal of recruiting 100,000 election poll workers and also coincides with the second anniversary of the Vet the Vote campaign which launched on June 28, 2022.
“American democracy runs on elections, and elections run on volunteers,” said Ellen Gustafson, executive director of We the Veterans and Military Families, the non-partisan, non-profit group that organizes the Vet the Vote Coalition. “We are very proud of the efforts of the Vet the Vote team and our 37 coalition partners.”
Vet the Vote experienced a surge in election poll worker sign-ups last week after the public awareness and recruitment effort was mentioned in the Department of Veterans Affairs e-newsletter.
“The Department of Veterans Affairs has been a great supporter of Vet the Vote,” said Navy veteran Jeremy Butler, Chair of the Vet the Vote Coalition. “If anyone wondered if veterans read the VA’s e-newsletter, the answer is overwhelmingly yes. More importantly, we are grateful for the thousands of American veterans who are answering the nation’s call to serve again this election season as poll workers.”
We the Veterans and Military Families are working to get accurate nationwide data on the number of veterans already serving in the polls this year, but preliminary studies suggest that in some counties, at least 40% of election poll workers are veterans or military family members.
We the Veterans and Military Families was founded in 2021 by veterans and military family members. Its mission is to empower the veteran and military family community to strengthen America by promoting patriotic civic engagement. In 2022, it organized the 37-member Vet the Vote Coalition and recruited more than 63,500 veterans and family members to serve as volunteer election poll workers nationwide.
The nationwide need for poll workers for this 2024 election is estimated to be over one million.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.