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PRO (YES)
San Diego County, California's Chief Administrative Office's Initial Report on the March 2, 2004 Primary Election, released on March 8, 2004, states:
"Because of new procedures and requirements for the touch screen machines, two more positions were added - the Systems Inspector and the Systems Assistant - who were responsible for the set up and operation of the machines. Each of the more than 3,200 Systems Inspectors and Assistant Systems Inspectors received 2 1/2 hours of hands-on training specifically on setting the equipment up, creating voter access cards, logging into the card-encoding devices, use of the touch screens, and closing down the equipment at the end of election day...
All poll workers received a detailed guide and procedural checklist to help them through the various processes of the day, from set-up in the morning to closing at the end of the day. Troubleshooting tips were mailed to the Systems Inspectors the week prior to the election."
3/8/2004 County of San Diego Chief Administrative Office 
Cathy Cox, Georgia Secretary of State, explains in her July 2003 report Touch the Future of Voting: Georgia's Guide to Election Reform:
"Beginning in September [2002], Diebold trainers began to fan out across Georgia to conduct hands-on training sessions for poll workers in every one of Georgia's 159 counties. As part of its contract with the state, Diebold committed to train at least two workers per precinct - typically a poll manager and an assistant. These sessions, which lasted from 2 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours, provided an in-depth orientation to the equipment operation and procedures. A 12 1/2 minute training videotape, produced and distributed by the Office of the Secretary of State, also offered a basic overview of set up, election operations and shut down of the equipment. More than 3000 tapes were distributed statewide.
In addition to the Diebold and KSU-provided [Kennesaw State University Center for Election Systems] training on touch screen operations, all counties are required by law to train poll workers on the broader scope of duties, including voter ID requirements, checking in and accounting for voters, provisional voting procedures and other procedures, as well as assuring that every poll worker was trained on the touch screen."
July 2003 Cathy Cox
Kennesaw State University's Center for Election Systems describes the Georgia poll worker training program in the 2003 report Comprehensive Program Review Self-Study for the Center for Election Systems:
"Poll Worker Training: This training will prepares [sic] the learner to perform any necessary function required in a polling place. Learning outcomes include: opening the polls, registering the voters, assisting voters with the voting stations [Georgia exclusively uses electronic voting machines throughout the state], assisting handicapped voters, detecting voting station failures and taking the corrective action, closing the polls, performing closing audits, and transmitting the precinct results to the county office."
2003 Kennesaw State University Center for Election Systems
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CON (NO)
The National Academy of Sciences' 2005 report Asking the Right Questions About Electronic Voting includes the following first person report of Leslie Sussan's experience as a poll worker in Montgomery County, Maryland:
"Problems with the quality of the training, the conditions we had to work under, and the unintended effects of the voting systems themselves were very evident. Weeks before each election, election judges attended a mandatory 4-hour training session and were given a binder with instructions...
The first training I went to was almost all lecture, with only about 30 minutes' practice with an actual voting machine we saw for the first time. The second training devoted more time to role plays, but the presentation of what to do was fast and cursory, and most people had not read the manuals beforehand, resulting in lots of confusion. Little effort was made to explain the purpose of particular documents or requirements; the rush to get through 'what to do' left no time for 'why.' The inadequacy of the training was evident when election judges tried to use their common sense to fill in the gaps in their memory and understanding."
2005 National Academy of Sciences
The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of Miami-Dade County [Florida] explains in its September 20, 2002 report "Inquiry Into Circumstances Surrounding the September 10, 2002 Election in Miami-Dade County":
"Much attention and blame has been cast by County officials on so-called unqualified poll workers. Some say the poll workers lacked the technical know-how to grasp the new technology. Others have said that because Miami-Dade received its iVotronic machines later than other counties, Miami-Dade was caught in a time-crunch with not enough time to conduct training.
After extensive review of the 'training' issue, the OIG concludes that the matter does not lie in the caliber or technological experience of the poll worker, but is grounded in the absence of quality training sessions and written training materials. The fact that the County's full shipment of iVotronic machines did not arrive until July is also no excuse for the lack of planning that should have taken place with respect to a training curriculum. Basic training could have taken place with the initial shipment of devices. Obviously, the absence of a quality-training plan affects the successful implementation of any such endeavor."
9/20/2002 Office of the Inspector General of Miami-Dade County
Michael Shamos, Ph.D., J.D., in his paper "Paper v. Electronic Voting Records - An Assessment," (published in the Proceedings of the 14th ACM Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy, 2004), states:
"Many of the so-called failures of DREs in fact resulted from inadequate training of poll workers in using the equipment. HAVA has created an incentive for counties to rush to procure and begin using DREs. Some jurisdictions have done so without adequate preparation, and have seen failures occur during an election. When machines are tested at the warehouse immediately prior to an election and are found to be working, yet cannot be started on election day morning, it is much more likely that the problem results from unfamiliarity with startup procedures than a sudden and unexplained failure of the equipment."
2004 Michael Shamos
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