Blair graduate interviewed by The Washington Post as student poll worker

This is not original reporting. All information has been compiled from The Washington Post section Questions and Answers With… by Nurith C. Aizenman.

Blair graduate Cori Cohen, class of 2004, was featured in the Metro section of The Washington Post today, Oct. 31 as one of the 140 University of Maryland students who will be working at the polls on Tuesday.

Only 1.5 million Americans volunteered to fill the two million poll worker positions needed in the 2000 election, according to The Washington Post. This year, the federal government is investing $600,000 to pay students from 15 colleges to work at the polls, and Cohen is among the students that signed up.

Workers are required to arrive at their assigned polling stations at 6:00 a.m. and may stay as late as 9:00 p.m. or 12:00 a.m. to read votes, count totals and close up, Cohen told The Washington Post. To prepare for Election Day, she underwent a "meeting on campus that lasted a couple of hours,” which introduced workers to a "huge, 100-page manual with all the procedures we'll have to follow,” Cohen said to The Post. She also practiced setting up and receiving information from the new touch-screen voting machines.

Cohen believes that this year's election is extremely important, especially for youths. "This election is really going to determine our future in terms of the wars we fight, the deficit we'll be paying off, the Social Security that's available to us, the education and health care our children get and the Supreme Court justices that make decisions affecting us,” she told The Washington Post. She added that many of her friends know the importance of this election and are planning to vote. "We understand what's at stake,” she said to The Post.