Appointment and residency of election officials

election officials who are reassigned by a municipal clerk or board of election commissioners to correct staffing deficiencies; and election officials who are appointed to fill a temporary or permanent vacancy. If the municipal clerk or the executive director of a board of election commissioners or a deputy to the clerk or executive director serves as a special registration deputy or is appointed to work at a polling place to fill a vacancy in an inspector position, the clerk, executive director, or deputy need not be a resident of the municipality in which he or she serves.

Officials who are appointed to work at a polling place that serves more than one ward must be electors of one of the wards served by the polling place. In addition, a high school pupil who is 16 or 17 years of age may serve as an inspector (poll worker) at the polling place serving his or her residence.

Currently, political party officers may submit the names of nominees to serve as election officials, other than as special registration deputies, at polling places. If no nominations or insufficient nominations are submitted, municipalities may appoint election officials on a nonpartisan basis. Twice as many nominations are submitted as there are positions to be filled. Any nominee may be designated as a first choice nominee, and a municipality must appoint a first choice nominee unless the Government Accountability Board (GAB) permits nonappointment for good cause shown.

This bill provides that an individual who serves as an election official at a polling place on election day need be an elector only of a county in which the municipality where the official serves is located, except as the law currently permits the individual to reside elsewhere. The bill makes no change, however, to the residency requirement applicable to a high school pupil who serves as an inspector.

The bill also permits, for up to 50 percent of the positions to be filled, a political party officer to specify the ward for which an individual is nominated to serve. The bill requires municipalities to appoint individuals who are nominated to serve in a specified ward in the ward for which they are nominated for at least 50 percent of the positions to be filled, unless GAB or the attorney general permits nonappointment for good cause shown. The bill permits a nominee whose nonappointment is authorized by GAB to appeal the decision of GAB to the attorney general, who may affirm or reverse the decision of GAB.