Philadelphia Commissioners Office
The City Commissioners office is responsible for overseeing the entire election process in Philadelphia. There are three commissioners, each serve a four year term and have a staff There are —— total workers in two city locations with an annual budget of 10.9 million dollars.
The traditional responsibilities of the office are:
- Overseeing the staffing and training of poll workers at 1,686 locations.
- Ensuring polling places are open at 7:00 am and closed at 8:00 pm
- Non partisan increase voter turnout
Additional responsibilities (as our team sees them):
- Protect voter rights and quickly address issues at polling places
- Educate ALL Philadelphians on the committee and ward structure
- Celebrate the wards/committees that are doing well with rewards and incentives.
- Support the others by sharing best practices and visiting them to assess their needs
- Encouraging civic minded Philadelphians to get involved thus providing Ward leaders with candidates for open committee positions.
Innovation moving forward sets us apart.
Design and implement a curriculum for Philadelphia elementary, middle and high school students on how to be a “Philly” VOTER co-taught by current City Council members and Social Studies teachers.
Work with a team of current and retired teaches to develop a public education campaign for the rollout of new election machines during the summer of 2019.
Our Top 10 Initiatives to increase voter turnout are:
- Philly Civics 101: Ten lesson high school program co-taught with City Council members
- Work with ALL wards. Celebrate those doing well and support those that have challenges.
- Provide sufficient resources in elections and ensure voting is accessible. (Mobile Vote Philly mobile). Help staff polls (Current teachers and retirees)
- Restore voting rights for formerly incarcerated people and provide voter education.
- Work with the Office of Adult Education’s less literate population.
- Encourage city offices and businesses to offer workers incentives to Vote Philly.
- Teachers can offer students incentives to vote and celebrate those that do.
- Lobby state legislators and county election boards to advocate for early voting, no-fault absentee voting and lowering the voting age to 17 or if you turn 18 by general election day you can vote in the previous primary.
- Create and have workers stationed at education kiosks across the city.
- Survey employees of the Commissioners Office for more ideas!