Fred DeCaro III, Republican Registrar of the Town of Greenwich, CT

Standard: Poll Worker Training

Starting this spring, election offices nationwide can pursue certification in the voluntary, nonpartisan Standards developed by the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence — universal election administration guidelines created with the input of hundreds of election officials nationwide. Throughout 2026 and beyond, we’ll be featuring election officials speaking about their certification journey in their own words.

I’m Fred DeCaro III, one of the two Registrars of Voters for the Town of Greenwich, Connecticut (I’m the Republican, serving alongside my Democratic colleague Mary Hegarty).   

I’m a fourth-generation Greenwich resident, and my wife Meg and I are proud parents to two daughters (including one newly registered 18-year-old Connecticut voter). For nearly as long as I’ve been a parent, I’ve been in this role at Town Hall, working to ensure Greenwich voters have the best possible experience participating in our elections. 

But enough of the proud dad stuff (I could go on all day). Today, I wanted to talk to you about why my office is pursuing certification in the Poll Worker Training standard developed by the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence. 

One of my main interests in the elections space is how much offices across the country actually have in common — when it comes to our basic needs, operations, and goals, we are all focused on what’s best for voters. That’s why over the last year, the Greenwich office and over 50 others have helped road test the Alliance Certification process to make sure the Standards can assess excellence across any jurisdiction, regardless of size. 

So why did we decide to pursue certification in the Poll Worker Training standard? First off, we’ve known for a while that we wanted to update our poll worker training materials, especially with the statewide introduction of new tabulation machines. We’ve also been looking for more ways to celebrate our poll workers — they’re the literal front lines of our democracy, and supporting them is directly connected to supporting community trust and engagement. 

The chance to road test the Poll Worker Training standard with the Alliance gave us the motivation to stop talking about all this and actually do it. What’s more, the Alliance Certification Program certifies entire departments. We wanted this independent, nonpartisan badge of excellence to recognize the entire team of resourceful, incredible professionals who make Greenwich elections happen. 

As part of the process we filled out an online questionnaire and submitted publicly available documents for review. It all proved eye-opening — it showed us where we’re excelling and where we have room to grow. We scored excellent in many areas, but even after 17 years of doing this job, I identified some gaps in our work. Most notably, we needed to better align our training methods with the science of adult learning (more role playing and mock elections, more hands-on participation) and offer more availability and online options for our trainings in order to completely meet the requirements of the Standard.

Going through the process lit a fire under us. Since that initial self-assessment, we’ve filmed several new instructional videos about operating Connecticut’s new tabulators, and designed Greenwich-specific flashcards so our polling folks can review critical information at their pace (we’ve also partnered with local restaurants to make sure they eat well on the job!).

Fun fact about Greenwich: our Town Hall building is nearly 100 years old, and until 1979 it actually functioned as a high school (beloved alum: my dad, Fred Jr.). The lockers and classrooms may be history now, but I still use every day in the office to learn how to do this job better. That’s why, when certification opens up nationwide this spring, the Town of Greenwich will not only finish certification in the Poll Worker Training standard, we’ll be first in line to choose another Standard of Excellence to master (we’ve got our eye on the Community Relationships standard). 

Eventually, we’d like to get certified in every single Standard, but we accept that you have to start somewhere! 

Learn more about the Standards for Election Excellence and stay tuned for the wide launch of the Alliance Certification process in April.