(Courtesy of Madison Lackey)

For Madison Lackey, the election cycle elicits a feeling of “existential dread” that begins in August and lasts until November.

“It’s like — your rights are on the line, like, at all times. Everybody’s rights, from conservatives to liberals, everybody,” Lackey said.

Instead of distancing herself from this feeling, Lackey immerses herself in it by working at polling locations.

“It just completes a piece of me because I love to advocate, and this is how I can advocate,” she said. 

Lackey, a second-year criminal justice major at Wichita State, has been an election worker since she was 16. Her mother’s work at the Rice County Courthouse connected her with the people at the county clerk’s office who aid in elections year-round.

Now, Lackey has nearly four years under her belt as an election worker. She noted the first year she did it was “boring” — and it still can be.

“It definitely can be rough your first time around because you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, literally, here for 12 hours,’ and then you just feel dead by the end of the day,” Lackey said. “But then there’s that sense of ‘Wow, I just did that. That’s so lovely.’”

The long days are part of the job, as voting locations in Rice County open at 7 a.m. on Election Day and close about 12 hours later.

“When you’re an (election) worker, you are there all day,” Lackey said. “You’re not allowed to leave. You have to clean up. And then … you have to take the things back to the courthouse. Someone has to follow you to ensure that you go to the courthouse.”

The strict guidelines ensure that elections are secure and each person’s vote is counted. In Lackey’s second year of working elections, the Rice County Clerk office made her a supervising judge.

Beth Terwey works in the clerk’s office and has known Lackey for around six years. Terwey describes Lackey as someone with a “great work ethic.”

“She gave us great confidence,” Terwey said. “Everybody she worked with was impressed with her.”

Lackey is aiming to graduate this spring, taking 20 credit hours online from Washington D.C., where she’s doing an internship for the U.S. Department of State.

“I am working for the Office of Foreign Assistance, and just on my day-to-day, I am basically assisting with whatever they need, like attending meetings, drafting readouts and kind of notes,” Lackey said.

Lackey, who is hoping to get a law degree, said the internship is truly just a learning opportunity, as she doesn’t plan on pursuing a career in foreign assistance.

“It’s definitely a side quest, I would say,” she said.

While Lackey might be away from her hometown of Sterling right now, she’ll be back in time to work the general election when her internship ends in November.

“I always return home to do it, just out of respect for the county clerk that got me more passionate about it,” Lackey said. “Also just because sometimes people are really mean when they’re in the polling places, and they’re really mean to the (election) workers.”

Lackey said she’s often the youngest person by about half a century when working the elections.

“More people need to be aware of this opportunity because a lot of election workers, at least in rural areas, are elderly people, like people’s grandparents,” Lackey said. 

In the U.S., 60% of people who work at polling locations are over 60 years old. People aged 18-25, like Lackey, make up a sliver of election poll workers, just 4%.

But research suggests that interest in general elections is rising for young people. As of this September, Kansas has seen a 4.4% increase in 18 to 29-year-olds registered to vote compared to November 2020.

“With the rise in voters of the younger demographic that we see, I could only encourage for that to spill over into the elections and the people that work at the elections,” Lackey said. “Because it’s just a good way to get involved; you are kind of figuring out how sections of your government are working; and it really is just — it’s really gratifying.”