PORTLAND – The city clerk in Portland is recruiting high school seniors to work as greeters and clerks at the city’s 17 polling places during the Nov. 2 election.

Linda Cohen said she is enlisting high school students because it has become so difficult to find the more than 200 people she would like to have working the polls on Election Day.

Her experience is felt nationwide. Federal election officials say there is a shortage of about 500,000 poll workers across the country.

In Maine, the effort to hire more election workers is hampered by changing demographics, competing interests, comparatively low pay that generally ranges between minimum wage and $10 an hour, and a state law that requires an equal number of Democratic and Republican poll workers.

“We need more election clerks,” Cohen said. “Specifically, we need Republican election clerks, because we always fall short in Portland and other Maine cities.”