This year, Indian Hills students were offered a new opportunity to work at polls on Election Day, on November 5th. In order to work these polls in New Jersey, you do not have to be of age to vote, with the minimum being 16 years old. According to nj.gov, those who work during election day will make $21.43 an hour for early voting, and $300 on election day. The state hopes that in doing this, young Americans will be able to see our democracy in action. 

28 students at Indian Hills were trained on September 27th, 2024. Junior student Justin Talamini shares his experience on the training: “For about 2 hours we all met in the library classroom with the Bergen County Poll administrators. All of the voting machines were set up for us to use and train with. It was a lot of explaining and not a lot of hands-on experience.”

David Gerskowitz, who was stationed in Wykoff had this to say about working at the polls: “Most people followed the rules, it wasn’t very chaotic, lines started off super long but got shorter as the day went on. A lot of people I knew were there and it was cool to see so many people I knew voting. The process was overall pretty easy, it was very similar to the practice. There was an area to check people in, an area to set them up for polling, then we helped them put the ballot into the box. There was a massive turnout for this election.”