Idahoans may soon have the opportunity to trade jury duty for election work.
An Idaho Senate committee advanced a bill Monday that would allow prospective jurors to volunteer as poll workers for elections instead.
If passed by the state Senate and signed into law, the bill would provide county clerks with an option to make up for shortages of election workers with people who seek exemptions from jury duty.
Under the legislation, a county clerk could ask a jury commission and a court to allow prospective jurors to volunteer as poll workers in the next county-run election. The new process would move forward only when the clerk determines that there are not enough poll workers to handle upcoming elections.
A court would then offer the opportunity to swap jury duty for poll work for those seeking to have their jury duty postponed or excused. If the prospective juror accepted the change, then they would be excused from jury duty for the next two years.
The bill passed Idaho's House in February with no objections after being introduced in late January. The bill has to pass the full state Senate, which like the House is dominated by Republicans, before it can be signed into law by the state's governor, Republican Brad Little, who is running for re-election. The Idaho Capital Sun first reported the bill’s advancement in the state Senate.
NBC News reported in 2024 that election officials across the country were leaving their positions at the highest rate in decades, according to research from the Bipartisan Policy Center. Turnover had already been on the rise, but the think tank found that more than a third of local election offices had changed hands since 2020.
Poll worker shortages have affected some jurisdictions this year as primary elections get underway. NBC Dallas-Fort Worth previously reported that Tarrant County was searching for more than 200 additional poll workers in the days before the March 3 primaries.
