New Tools for Election Offices: Worker Time Tracking, Pay Calculations, and Asset Management

Local election officials work tirelessly behind the scenes to power our democracy. From recruiting and managing poll workers to meticulously preparing equipment, election offices handle various complex logistics.

That’s why U.S. Digital Response (USDR) has developed two new modules in our Election Administration Platform: Election Worker Time Tracking and Pay Calculation along with Election Asset Management. Created in collaboration with election offices, these digital tools simplify the most time-consuming aspects of election preparation and reporting.

Streamline temporary staff management with time tracking and pay calculations

View timesheets for all your temporary staff

Managing poll worker time and pay is one of the most time-consuming aspects of post-election wrap-up. Election offices often spend days or weeks manually sorting through paper timesheets, deciphering handwriting, and entering data. These intensive, hands-on processes open the door for errors and drain limited staff resources.

USDR’s Election Worker Time Tracking and Pay Calculation solution simplifies and digitizes these workstreams by allowing poll workers to clock in and out using a barcode scanner. The system automatically calculates hours, applies unique pay rules relevant to your jurisdiction, and generates export-ready payroll reports. The benefits are clear:

• Significant time savings: Reduce payroll processing time dramatically
• Improved accuracy: Enable workers to clock in/out with barcode scanners and use approval workflows to validate hours, ensuring election workers are paid correctly for every hour worked.
• Automatic reports: Digital records, including clock-in/out timestamps and total hours, provide a clear report to share with the payroll department for every worker’s shift.
• Flexibility: Customizable pay rules accommodate complex requirements, such as role-based pay rates, overtime calculations, and jurisdiction-specific policies. Hours can also be manually input if needed.

Bring order to election equipment tracking with an asset management system

You can scan barcodes directly into your browser to easily track which assets or seals are assigned to which precinct.

Election offices are responsible for a vast inventory of high-value, sensitive equipment. From voting machines to e-poll books, every asset must be meticulously prepared, allocated to polling places, and tracked through the entire election cycle. Gaps in this process can lead to equipment shortages, delivery errors, and lost or misplaced assets.

USDR’s Election Asset Management software brings order to this complex operation, offering a unified platform to manage your entire inventory. By leveraging barcode technology, you can uniquely identify and track each piece of equipment, ensuring a clear chain of custody from the warehouse to the voting location and back. With Election Asset Management, you can achieve:

• Complete visibility of all types of assets: Track machines, equipment, e-poll books, USBs, furniture, seals, and more with unique barcodes
• Precise allocation: Easily assign assets to specific polling locations based on precinct requirements, eliminating over or under-supply.
• Optimized warehouse operations: Provide easy-to-follow lists and packing slips that detail exactly which voting equipment needs to be collected, packaged, and delivered to each polling place
• Documented chain-of-custody: Record every asset transfer, from warehouse to truck to polling place, with quick barcode scans, creating a record of custody.
• Full audit trail: Access detailed reports showing the complete history of each asset, including chain-of-custody details, for easy auditing and accountability.

Special thanks to Thad Hall, Election Director in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, for developing this capability in partnership with us.

A comprehensive platform for election logistics

Election Worker Time Tracking and Pay Calculation, and Election Asset Management are just two capabilities in USDR’s comprehensive Election Administration Platform. Designed in partnership with election officials, the platform offers an integrated suite of tools to streamline various aspects of election operations, including:

• Election worker scheduling and management
• Voting wait time monitoring
• Help desk and incident management
• And more

By offering a holistic, affordable platform, USDR aims to empower election offices of all sizes with modern tools. As we look ahead to future election cycles, USDR remains committed to partnering with election offices to tackle their most pressing challenges. Together, we can deliver modern, safe, and trustworthy election operations that serve as the bedrock of our democracy. Learn more about how to access the platform here.