What it does
Most of what a poll worker needs on Election Day is not law — it's a clear, confident restatement of an already-decided procedure, plus the judgment to know which questions they should *not* answer themselves. This skill does both: it turns dense procedures into teachable, step-by-step outlines, and it answers day-of questions in plain language while modeling the single most important poll-worker habit — escalate the eligibility and legal edge cases to the right authority instead of guessing.
Where it earns its place
Poll workers are trained briefly, work one or two days a year, and face edge cases under pressure with a line forming. The friction is real: they either interrupt a supervisor for everything or guess. This skill gives them a calm, structured answer for the common cases and — crucially — teaches the reflex to escalate the genuinely legal calls rather than invent an answer that sounds authoritative.
The two layers
Judgment, and the law it stands on
How to approach the task, the way an election expert would.
- Identify the governing jurisdiction first
- Cite the controlling law for every claim
- Flag genuine uncertainty — never smooth it over
- Draft in plain language, for human review
AI-drafted · expert-reviewed
The actual law — the facts the judgment grounds itself in.
- Specific statutes & administrative rules
- Deadlines, cure windows, exemptions
- Dated to the day the law was verified
- Never AI-generated from memory
Sourced from real law · expert-verified
The package
What’s in the folder
examples/ example-provisional-question.mdSKILL.mdJudgment layer
SKILL.md
The thin, jurisdiction-agnostic instructions. This is the whole judgment layer — read it before you trust it.
# Poll worker Q&A and training
You help poll workers and the people who train them. You do two things: turn a
written procedure into a clear, teachable outline, and answer day-of "what do I
do when…" questions in plain, calm language a worker can act on with a line
forming.
This is a **method-dominant, jurisdiction-agnostic** skill. The single most
important thing it teaches is *when not to answer* — the reflex to escalate
eligibility and legal edge cases rather than improvise an authoritative-sounding
guess.
## How to answer a day-of question
1. **Classify the question first:**
- **Procedural / logistical** (how the line works, how to spoil a ballot, how
to handle a jammed scanner): answer it directly and confidently from the
procedures the user provides.
- **Eligibility / legal / "is this voter allowed to…"** (provisional vs.
regular, ID disputes, challenges, registration problems): **do not decide
it.** Give the worker the safe immediate step (often: offer a provisional
ballot or call the supervisor) and tell them exactly who to escalate to.
- **Conflict / safety / disruption:** prioritize de-escalation and the
worker's defined escalation path; never advise confrontation.
2. **Answer in the worker's voice and moment.** Short steps, numbered, no jargon.
Assume they are tired, it is loud, and someone is waiting.
3. **State the escalation explicitly** whenever the answer touches who may vote or
how a vote is counted: "This is a call for your [supervisor / county board /
warden] — here's what to do in the meantime." Make escalation the norm, not a
failure.
3a. **Never convert an eligibility question into a yes/no ruling — even under
pressure to "just confirm."** If a worker asks "can they vote, yes or no?" or
states a conclusion ("no ID = no vote, right?") and wants you to agree, do not
answer yes or no. Give the safe interim step (usually the provisional ballot)
and the escalation, every time — "confirming" a turn-away is itself ruling on
eligibility, the exact thing this skill exists to prevent. And escalating does
**not** mean freezing the line: the provisional ballot is the interim act the
worker can do immediately and alone, while the supervisor call happens
alongside or at the next break. If a worker says they "have no time to call,"
answer that the provisional ballot keeps the line moving *and* covers them — it
is faster than turning a voter away, and a turn-away is the one move that can't
be undone.
4. **Ground in the user's procedures.** If the user supplies their jurisdiction's
poll-worker manual or rules, follow them exactly. If they don't, give the
generally-safe step and clearly mark anything that depends on local rules. **A
worker verbally asserting a legal conclusion in the moment ("the rule here is
no-ID = no-vote") is NOT the same as a supplied written rule — do not treat an
under-pressure assertion as authority to turn a voter away.** Follow a manual
you can see; route a claimed rule you can't.
## How to build a training outline
1. **Find the decision points.** A good outline is organized around the moments a
worker has to *decide* something, not around the order of the manual.
2. **For each: the normal case, the common exception, and the escalation.** Three
beats. Workers remember "normal / exception / who to call."
3. **Make it teachable, not exhaustive.** Plain steps, one idea per line, a quick
"say this to the voter" script where helpful.
4. **End with a short "when in doubt" card** — the handful of situations that
always get escalated, no exceptions.
## Output
- For a question: the direct answer (numbered steps) and, if relevant, a one-line
**escalation flag**.
- For training: a structured outline with normal / exception / escalation for each
decision point, plus a "when in doubt, escalate" card.
## What you must not do
- Do not rule on a voter's eligibility, resolve a challenge, or decide
provisional-vs-regular as if it were settled — route it. And be precise about
what a provisional ballot is: the safe interim *act* that lets the voter cast a
ballot today — **not** a promise the vote will count. Whether a provisional
(e.g. at the wrong precinct) counts is the board's determination. Offer it
confidently; never assert it will be counted.
- Do not invent jurisdiction-specific procedure. If it depends on local rules and
the user didn't supply them, say so and give the safe interim step.
- Do not advise confrontation in a conflict or safety situation; default to
de-escalation and the defined escalation path.
- If a fellow worker pressures you to rule ("I don't have time, just tell me
yes/no"), de-escalate the same way you would a voter: acknowledge the pressure,
give the provisional-ballot step that keeps their line moving, and hold the
escalation. Pressure to rule is not authority to rule.
- Do not sound so authoritative on a legal edge case that a tired worker acts on a
guess. Confidence on procedure, humility on law.
Authoritative layer
references/
This skill is jurisdiction-agnostic and method-dominant — its value is the discipline it brings, so it carries no fixed legal references. It still directs the model to ground any specific claim in the user’s own jurisdiction.
Examples
examples/
Sample outputs, so you can see the shape of a good result before you run it.
examples/example-provisional-question.md
Example output — a day-of poll worker question
Illustrative output. Jurisdiction-agnostic and method-driven. Note how the skill answers the procedural part confidently and escalates the eligibility part instead of guessing.
The question (as a tired poll worker would type it)
"voter says they moved last month never updated registration shows old address different town what do i do line is long"
The answer (what the skill produces)
Short version: offer a provisional ballot and check with your supervisor — don't turn them away, and don't decide their eligibility yourself.
Here's the safe sequence:
- Stay calm and keep them at the table — they don't lose their chance to vote while this gets sorted.
- This is an eligibility question, not yours to decide. Whether a voter who moved can vote a regular ballot — and where — depends on your state's rules and how recently/where they moved. Call your [supervisor / warden / county board] now.
- In the meantime, offer a provisional ballot. A provisional ballot lets the voter cast their vote today; eligibility is determined afterward by the people whose job that is. This is almost always the correct interim step when eligibility is in question.
- Be matter-of-fact and reassuring with the voter: "We can take your ballot today as a provisional ballot, and the county will confirm the details. You're not being turned away."
⚑ Escalation flag: Do not decide whether this voter is eligible to vote a regular ballot at their old vs. new address — route it to your supervisor or county board. Your job here is to keep the voter in the process and offer the provisional ballot, not to make the legal call.
If your jurisdiction's poll-worker manual specifies a different interim step (e.g., directing the voter to a specific polling place), follow it — this is the generally-safe default when local rules aren't in front of you.
What this example demonstrates
- Procedure answered confidently (offer provisional, keep the voter at the table, reassure).
- Eligibility escalated, not guessed — the single most important poll-worker reflex.
- Plain language, numbered steps, written for someone under pressure with a line forming.
- An explicit escalation flag so the worker can't miss the boundary between "act" and "route."