About the Office

Web-based Online Poll Worker Training Is Here!

TO: City Secretaries, School Superintendents and Other Political Subdivision Election Officials
FROM: Ann McGeehan, Director of Elections and Kim Kizer, Director of Special Projects
DATE: April 22, 2008
RE: Web-based Online Poll Worker Training Is Here!

We want to let you know that we have a fantastic training opportunity that is available free of charge, 24/7 for all of your poll workers. The Texas Online Poll Worker Training is available now.

This is a web-based curriculum designed to teach your election judges and clerks about polling place procedures.  This training brings the Handbooks for Election Judges and Clerks to life, in that it contains all of the information discussed in the hard copy Handbook, plus it is interactive.  The online training features video clips from our Election Judges and Clerks video, interactive features, close up of the forms, opening and closing the polling place, voter situations, pop quizzes, a test component, Election Resources and finally, a Certificate of Completion (which is why you need an e-mail address for each of your poll workers—husband/wife cannot share an e-mail address, or it will only print a certificate with one of the names on it). 

The cool thing about this training is that you are the Administrator — once you log into the application and start entering your poll workers, you will be able to generate reports and you will be able to see who has logged in; who has taken the test; who hasn’t; and probably most important, what questions your poll workers are missing on the test.  This online training does not replace your face-to-face training, it is merely another tool.  And, it will help you in customizing your face-to-face training. 

Here’s how it works: as the City Secretary, School Superintendent and Other Political Subdivision Election Official, we already have your political subdivision in a drop down menu.  When you log onto the system, all you have to do is select your political subdivision, and the system will prompt you for a unique password, follow the prompts along the way, and you are ready to begin registering all of your poll workers for the online training. 

Or if you rather, your poll workers can self-register!  Yes, a new feature now allows your poll workers to register themselves, and you will still have access to who from your political subdivision is registered by going to your “View Reports.”  Simply instruct your poll workers to go to:  www.texaspollworkertraining.com/signup, have them select their political subdivision and the system will prompt them the rest of the way.  You may wish to print and distribute to your poll workers a notice with the URL and the proper political subdivision, to make it easier on them.

Remember, if your poll workers don’t have an e-mail address, you can create one for them using one of the free providers such as Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail.  We sure hope that you will use this new training tool—it’s super convenient and available now!  If you have any questions about the Online Pollworker Training, please don’t hesitate to contact Alejandro Garcia or Kim Kizer or call us toll-free at 1.800.252.VOTE.

Texas Online Pollworker Training Logon Instructions

To Logon to the application:

  1. Go to http://texaspollworkertraining.com/
  2. Type in your e-mail address
  3. The first time you logon, use the generic password:  onlinetraining (all lower case, no spaces)
  4. The system will then prompt you to create your own unique password
  5. Go to ________(your political subdivision) County Admin.
  6. On the left hand side of the screen, you will see "Manage Poll Workers"
  7. Click on that, and then it will pop up a screen that will require you to enter their first name, last name, and e-mail address.
  8. If your poll workers don’t have an e-mail address, assign them one through yahoo or hotmail, which are both free services.  You don’t assign passwords, the poll worker creates their own password when they log in.  Remember, everyone uses the generic “onlinetraining” password the first time they log on.
  9. After you enter all your poll workers in, you then go to "Broadcast e-mail" and click on poll workers that have never logged on and send them all an e-mail (already written and in the system) about how to begin the course.

Face to Face Training feature: (also available in pdf as a guide)

With this intuitive new feature you will be able to:

Remember, if your poll workers don't have an email address, you can create one for them using one of the free providers such as Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail.  We sure hope that you will use this new training toolit is very convenient and is available to you now! If you have any questions about the Online Poll Worker Training, contact our support desk, or call our HP (HAVA Partners) hotline for technical questions or problems toll-free at 1.888.POL.WRKR (1.888.765.9757) or you can email questions to support@havapartners.net.

Important:  We will have a toll-free number that HAVA Partners (HP) hosts for technical questions or problems, which is 888.POL.WRKR or you can e-mail questions.  Please encourage your poll workers to call this toll-free number, instead of calling you, that way, HP can keep a log of FAQ’s and they can be building a list of enhancements, if it is an issue that requires programming.