Focus Area: Elections

Part of “Stewards of Democracy,” a series on findings from the 2020 Democracy Fund/Reed College Survey of Local Election Officials

Effective election administration requires keeping up to date with a complex and dynamic set of policies and practices. A new local election official must be brought up to speed quickly, and as the chief official in charge of local elections, must gain a deep understanding of laws, statutes, and administrative procedures at the local, state, and federal levels.

Increasingly, local election officials also must be experts in many fields: human resources, information technology, direct mail processing, public relations, cybersecurity… the list goes on and on. And in 2020 there was a completely new skill to learn — how to conduct an election during a pandemic.

“We were one of the first counties to post election results on the internet. That took some doing… [then] I’m having to become a social media expert… Now, I’m a cybersecurity expert. Right now, I’m a public health expert, because I’m having to… figure out how to deploy all these protocols on how to conduct voting in person under a pandemic.”

– LOCAL ELECTION OFFICIAL

The challenge is heightened for some elections offices, where small or part-time staffs have few with whom to share in this journey or consult with on questions. In our 2020 Democracy Fund/Reed College Survey of Local Election Officials, over half of respondents said they work in an office with just one or two staff members who may not even be full-time. Some work alone with only volunteer and/or temporary support, and with varying levels of expertise and support available from other local departments or from the state.

These realities underscore the importance of initial and ongoing education, as well as a connection to other professionals doing this work — all key ways local officials prepare to do their jobs effectively and respond to a continually changing elections landscape.

Job Training for Local Election Officials

The good news is that, overall, local election officials do report receiving initial and ongoing training — and they believe this training is effective. The officials we surveyed are relatively satisfied with the current level of job training that they receive, which is not insubstantial. Nationwide, about 85 percent of them received initial training when they first began their work, and almost 95 percent receive ongoing job training. Among local election officials receiving ongoing training, more than 90 percent go through the process at least once a year. Over 70 percent of local election officials believe that these trainings are either “extremely” or “very” effective, with ongoing training receiving higher ratings than initial training.

We also asked about training during in-depth interviews with local election officials. In these conversations, some officials said that initial training was overly general and not focused enough on the actual tasks that needed to be performed. Others shared that when they were first hired, a host of pressing needs took priority, in conflict with participation in training.

“But, of course, there wasn’t any time for training when I was sworn in on the early part of May and June. We’re having an election. So that is reality… you kind of had to learn by… as the saying goes… ‘Baptism by fire.’ We just kind of jumped in and just did it.”

– LOCAL ELECTION OFFICIAL

By comparison, ongoing training is often tied to state and national association meetings or statewide training sessions, allowing for local election officials to interact with each other and learn from shared experiences.  We also heard in our in-depth interviews that formal and informal communications networks are vital avenues for learning and innovation. We suspect that linking ongoing training to venues that support collegiality and network-building not only enhances the effectiveness of the training, but also contributes to the positive evaluations local election officials give training.

“There’s a lot of training required for election officials and the state will host regional training sessions, and so we’ll end up seeing a lot of the familiar faces… there’s definitely a lot of interaction and sharing of ideas with how to do it the best way. And just the willingness to share that information and help the other clerks.”

– LOCAL ELECTION OFFICIAL

We also learned that local election officials from the largest jurisdictions were the least likely to receive initial or ongoing training. Those from large jurisdictions were least likely to find trainings effective compared to their counterparts in smaller jurisdictions.

There could be any number of reasons for this, but one possibility is that local election officials in larger jurisdictions are more likely to come from other staff positions and would have had on-the-job training. This may lead them to feel underserved by additional training — a sentiment expressed by at least one interview participant.

“[The training] was not geared to me as somebody who had worked in the business for 20 years, but if I didn’t know anything, I’m not sure I would have come away terribly well prepared.”

– LOCAL ELECTION OFFICIAL

Another explanation is that training programs are better suited to local election officials from the numerous small jurisdictions than the comparatively lower number of large jurisdictions. In our interviews, some local election officials from larger jurisdictions noted that training programs can have a “one size fits all” approach that they find less valuable. Many smaller jurisdictions include clerks who are being trained more broadly, rather than just on election administration, and such trainings might provide a greater utility in their day-to-day work as clerks. Election work as a percentage of the average local election official’s workload is highly variable and, in part, depends on the size of the jurisdiction. For jurisdictions with fewer than 25,000 registered voters, only 55 percent of local election officials report that elections constitute a majority or more of their workload. For jurisdictions with over 100,000 registered voters, 100 percent say elections constitute the majority of their workload.

“That group gets together at least three times a year. We get together for training. Again, some of it’s elections, but some of it’s the other stuff that we do such as budgeting, and some of us even have HR roles in our county, and some of them even have IT roles in our counties too…”

– LOCAL ELECTION OFFICIAL

Many local election officials go above and beyond requirements when enrolling in ongoing job training. While almost 70 percent of those who receive ongoing training said that their state mandates training of some sort, more than 40 percent voluntarily enroll in regular training, and almost 25 percent pursue certification beyond their state’s requirements.

While our survey did not explore the role local election officials play in developing training, our interviews did identify a number of these officials who have become trainers in their own work with state associations. These individuals shared a sense of pride and excitement about the role that more senior officials can play in helping colleagues across the state. We can imagine many ways that these trainers become an important part of the connective tissue for elections officials in a state, building community as they convey knowledge and expertise.

Cybersecurity Preparation in Elections Offices

While the last year added many new worries for local election officials, cybersecurity has long been a key concern in the elections community — and it continues to grow in importance. For some local election officials, addressing cybersecurity needs poses challenges to attracting and retaining the right talent.

“[I]t’s very difficult to attract the talent that you need in the election industry and it’s becoming more complex. It used to be a very simple process, but now with the technology and cybersecurity that keeps me up at least every other night, that stuff’s not going away.”

– LOCAL ELECTION OFFICIAL

We asked local election officials about a series of tasks they might be performing to increase cybersecurity for elections. In our 2018 survey, we asked election officials only if they had conducted these cybersecurity tasks, if they planned to, or if the tasks felt “not applicable to my situation.” That question produced high “not applicable” responses, and local election officials told us that some of these cybersecurity tasks were handled by other agencies at the local level or by the state. We included these options in our 2020 survey, the responses to which — as shown in the next figure — provide a far more accurate picture of what tasks are being completed, and at what level of government.

On the whole, local election officials stated that they had recently completed most cybersecurity tasks, or planned to do so in preparation for the November 2020 election. For eight of the nine tasks we asked about, over 45 percent of local election officials planned to complete them by the election.

Across the board, large jurisdictions are more likely to perform tasks associated with cybersecurity than smaller ones. On average, a local election official in a jurisdiction with over 250,000 registered voters planned to complete two more of the nine tasks than an official from a district serving fewer than 5,000 registered voters.

While some local jurisdictions show comparatively low rates for some tasks, it does not mean those tasks are not being completed. When we dig deeper into criminal background checks, for example, a quarter of respondents reported that “another local office” handles background checks, and 16 percent reported that their state office handles them, while 32 percent responded that this task wasn’t applicable to them. The only tasks where “not applicable to my situation” exceeds 10 percent are “criminal background checks” (32 percent), “disabling wireless peripheral access” (18 percent), and “held cybersecurity training sessions for employees or elections workers” (19 percent).

The smallest jurisdictions were the most likely to answer “not applicable” and the most likely to report that tasks are handled by another local office or by the state. Fifty-two percent of those serving over 250,000 registered voters had plans to conduct background checks in-house (which they had either already completed or planned to complete before the election). But only 23 percent of jurisdictions with under 5,000 voters had similar plans. These small jurisdictions were much more likely than the largest jurisdictions to say that background checks were handled at the state level (21 percent vs. 7 percent) or that such checks weren’t applicable in their situation (32 percent vs. 20 percent).

The survey offers insight and focus for efforts to improve cybersecurity practices. For example, over a quarter of respondents said that, in their case, multi-factor authentication and a cybersecurity communication plan were handled by the state elections office, not at the local level. Over 20 percent of respondents said that background checks, wireless access methods such as Bluetooth, and computer system audits are handled by other local offices.

When approaching reforms to increase multi-factor authentication, therefore, efforts should be directed at state election departments. Improvements in other areas of security might be best targeted at local governments as a whole rather than at election offices specifically.

Support Networks for Local Election Officials

With so many small offices, it’s not surprising that local election officials reach out to other organizations or individuals for professional or personal support. No office is an island — even for the nine cybersecurity tasks we asked about, three-quarters of local election officials reported that one or more of these tasks was handled by another local office or the state election office (including over half of jurisdictions with more than 250,000 registered voters).

Our survey demonstrates the importance of these support networks. Over 90 percent of local election officials agreed that they had received sufficient guidance from state and federal authorities regarding the security of their election systems. This rate of agreement held up regardless of size, but smaller jurisdictions were much more likely to “strongly” agree, whereas larger jurisdictions often only “somewhat” agreed with this statement.

Almost half of all respondents said they belonged to their state association of local election officials, and over a quarter reported belonging to a regional or local association of election officials, but only about a quarter of officials in the smallest jurisdictions reported joining these organizations.

Across the board, in fact, local election officials in smaller jurisdictions were less likely to belong to the organizations that we asked about. This difference is particularly noticeable on questions about membership in national and international organizations such as the Election Center and the International Association of Government Officials (iGO).

One caveat is that our survey may not be capturing all of the organizations that local election officials belong to. For example, clerks may participate in associations particular to their other township or municipal duties. While not specifically elections-focused, these associations may provide a connection to others facing similar elections challenges in their states.

“If it wasn’t for those national organizations and opportunities to network with others across the country, you wouldn’t have anybody to talk to. Because there’s nobody in the county organization that has a clue what we do over here.”

– LOCAL ELECTION OFFICIAL

In the COVID-19 environment, local election officials had to rapidly implement changes in order to administer safe and accessible elections. We asked respondents which organizations were helpful in providing resources and information they could use to do their work amid the pandemic. Local and election-related resources were most likely to be consulted: Over half of local election officials said they used information from their state election office, state association of election officials, and their state or local health authority. About 35 percent reported using information from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in their planning, and under 20 percent reported using any of the other sources we asked about, which were mostly national-level election organizations.

Larger-jurisdiction local election officials were slightly more likely to use each of these sources during the pandemic than officials in smaller jurisdictions. Those serving under 5,000 voters reported using between two and three sources on average (out of the nine we asked about, including “other resource”), while local election officials in the largest jurisdictions reported using between four and five sources on average.

Wide Participation and General Satisfaction — With Key Areas for Improvement

Local election official training and connection to others in the profession are important to ensuring that elections are fair, efficient, and secure. Our survey findings indicate that while there are areas for improvement in the initial training local election officials receive, and possibly a need to tailor trainings to better fit the realities of larger jurisdictions, training is generally meeting the local election community’s needs.

Professional associations and other organizations provide critical connections between officials that often find themselves performing unique duties within their governmental organization. While we find participation in these organizations to be high among the larger jurisdictions, there is room for improvement in helping smaller jurisdictions connect with regional, state, and national organizations and resources.

Finally, training and professional associations contribute to the formal and informal networks among officials, which are avenues for sharing expertise, responding to challenges, or simply swapping war stories with friends and colleagues. More research needs to be done to understand the value these informal connections add, and how they may be further fostered and supported in the elections community.

Part of “Stewards of Democracy,” a series on findings from the 2020 Democracy Fund/Reed College Survey of Local Election Officials

Through their role in administering elections and expertise developed over time, local election officials gain a vantage point on election-related matters that is like no other. They are often more knowledgeable about how election laws and procedures operate at the ground level than citizens, advocates, and politicians. They interpret and implement election policy as they conduct local, state, and federal elections. They interact regularly with voters, as well as public office holders and political candidates, and they shape the voting experience.

In this post, we examine responses to the 2020 Democracy Fund/Reed College Survey of Local Election Officials to uncover this critical group’s views on the performance and integrity of the U.S. elections system and commonly proposed election reforms. We also unpack differences across jurisdiction size and other factors. Finally, we explore election officials’ opinions on their own role in serving voters. (See the survey website to learn more about data and methodology.)

Because of their expertise and connection to networks of other elections professionals, local election officials may be less swayed than the general public by some claims and counterclaims about elections. However, they are deeply embedded in local administration, and the distinct local and state administrative environments in which these officials work vary significantly in both nature and size, which may explain some differences in how they view election policies and reforms.

Local election officials are also diverse in their backgrounds, life experiences, and political beliefs (though much less so than the public at large, as we reported in a previous post), and this is also likely to lead to a diversity of viewpoints across the profession. Further, local election officials’ attitudes may be shaped by other forces, such as knowledge about election administration in other regions, continuing education and professional certification programs, or involvement in regional and national association meetings.

Our survey is among very few posed to chief local election officials that include questions about election policy reforms and system integrity, and interpreting the patterns that result is a complicated enterprise. In the following discussion, we explore differences in perspectives on these issues within the population of local election officials — specifically, by jurisdiction size, partisanship, and experience with specific election policies — understanding that ongoing research can reveal more about how such perspectives are shaped.

Confidence in the Election System

Voter confidence is a commonly referenced metric for the overall performance of the elections system. Voter confidence levels, especially when voters are asked whether they think their own ballot was counted accurately, often reflect individuals’ voting experiences and thus, at least in part, the administrative choices of local election officials. But voter confidence also moves in response to the election outcome, especially when survey participants (including local election officials) are asked about state and national election integrity, which may be driven more by political outcomes and less by legal or administrative choices.

Our study asked local election officials about their confidence in the integrity of the voter registration systems and the vote count at the state and national levels. We then compared these responses to those from the general public, captured in the Cooperative Election Study survey — but it should be noted that our survey of local election officials was administered in summer 2020 and the survey of the general public happened just before the election.

Not surprisingly, local election officials are much more confident than the public in the system that they help run. Although like the general public, local election officials also express more skepticism about election integrity at the national level than in their own state. Among local election officials, confidence that votes will be counted as intended at the state level is 96 percent — nearly 20 percentage points higher than among the general public — but their confidence in the national count is less than 10 percentage points higher than that of the public. When asked about voter registration rolls, local election officials similarly said their states’ systems were very secure, but they expressed much lower confidence in the security of voter registration systems nationwide.

Similarly, the percentage of local election officials who answered “don’t know” was much lower when asked about the integrity of state registration lists (4 percent) and state vote counts (1.4 percent) than national registration lists (16.7 percent) and the national vote count (12.9 percent). Also, as we explore later in this post, there is far less variation across jurisdiction size when asked at the state level than at the national level. These observations taken together lead us to surmise that local election officials’ opinions about state-level systems are grounded more in expertise and experience than are their opinions about systems nationwide.

Differences in Confidence by Jurisdiction Size

The size disparity across voting jurisdictions percolates throughout almost all aspects of local election administration, including perceptions of system integrity. For example, fully 95 percent of local election officials in the largest jurisdictions are “somewhat” or “very” confident in the integrity of the national vote count, as are 85 percent of local election officials from mid-sized jurisdictions serving 100,000–250,000 registered voters. Yet 62 percent of local election officials in the smallest jurisdictions express confidence, and just 14 percent in these districts are willing to say they are “very” confident.

Similarly, confidence in the integrity of nationwide voter registration lists declines steadily as we move from the largest jurisdictions (where nearly eight in ten are confident) to the smallest jurisdictions (where less than half are confident).

A look at local election officials’ confidence in the state vote count and registration lists reveals a dramatically different pattern — confidence is extremely high, and there is no variation at all across jurisdictions.

The smallest jurisdictions are overwhelmingly municipalities in Michigan, Wisconsin, and New England. The largest jurisdictions contain the most populous cities and metropolitan areas of the country. Further research is needed to understand whether differences in perceptions about the national election system are purely a function of size or something else, such as exposure to and involvement with national professional organizations, which is more common among local election officials in more populous jurisdictions.

Differences in Confidence by Partisanship

Partisanship has become the most important factor in explaining political values and opinions in the mass public, overshadowing the influence of race, education, religion, and other differences. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that partisanship factors into perceptions about election administration. In fact, the partisan gap in state voter confidence is larger among local election officials than within the mass public, while the partisan gap on national voter confidence is approximately the same magnitude across these groups.

Perspectives on Election Reforms

We want to amplify the voices of local election officials in policy debates, so we asked these professionals to share their viewpoints about important and timely election reform proposals. This produces a gauge of national support among those who would need to put these changes into place. In 2020, we asked local election officials about seven election reform policies — for six of them, we are able to compare the responses of these officials to those of the general public to understand major areas of agreement and difference. The popularity of these proposals should be understood in the context of their familiarity to officials and the public. In 2020, voter identification was required in 36 states, and Election Day registration was allowed in 21 states plus Washington, D.C. Only five states conducted all elections by mail, and there was no national holiday on Election Day.

Among reform policies, requiring the use of photo identification stands out; it is supported most strongly by local election officials (77 percent) and by the public (68 percent), and it is an area of greatest agreement between these groups.

The only other suggested change that is supported by more than half of local election officials is consolidating local, state, and federal elections so that they would occur at the same time. Local election officials understand how much cost, administrative burden, and job stress is created by the near constancy of elections in some states and localities.

How about making Election Day a national holiday? Just over half the public say they support this, while just over 40 percent of local election officials expressed support for this change. Interestingly, somewhat fewer in the public (40 percent) would support moving Election Day to a weekend, and only 15 percent of local election officials endorse this move.

Voting by mail, which became a flash point for political conflict in the 2020 election, shows far more support (over 40 percent) among local election officials, a number that may seem surprisingly high until we consider that 46 percent of all ballots were cast by mail in 2020. While our survey of local election officials was conducted in summer 2020, it was evident even at that point that voting by mail would hit historic levels that year. Local election officials were 14 percentage points more likely to support a full vote-by-mail system than were members of the general public (public polling was conducted very near to the November 2020 election).

Election Day registration is supported by approximately 40 percent of local election officials and just under half of the public. Also online/internet voting is supported by only 15 percent of local election officials, only half of its support among the public. Local election officials’ concerns over online/internet voting likely reflects the generally held belief by experts that no system would allow secure and private internet voting with current technology.

Differences in Policy Support by Partisanship

Election officials show the same partisan divide on some voting reforms as we see within the general public. For example, local election officials who identify as Republicans are about 45 percentage points more likely to support photo identification requirements, and local election officials who identify as Democrats are about 25 percentage points more likely to support same-day registration, running all elections by mail, or making Election Day a holiday or weekend event.

It is revealing that the partisan policy gap among local election officials is approximately equal in magnitude to that within the public. This suggests that these two populations may be responding to similar messaging from national political leaders.

Other studies have found a muted partisan effect on policy views of local election officials and on how these officials assess the benefits of election day registration. As 28 percent of the local election officials in our survey told us “they prefer not to answer” our question on partisan leanings (194 of 707 who responded to this question), and another 12 percent self-identified as “Independent,” our analysis on this topic is limited to the responses of the remaining 60 percent in our sample who felt comfortable telling us their partisan leanings, so we caution against over-interpreting these results.

Differences in Policy Views by Experience

We have observed in the past that experience matters to the views of local election officials, as it does for most policymakers. Prior experience working with a particular election rule or policy can impact a local election official’s opinion about the wisdom of implementing the same policy nationwide.

In our study, we use state election laws as a proxy for experience or knowledge about a given policy. And, indeed, the impact of policy experience is evident in the data when we compare opinions among local election officials in states with and without Election Day registration, and election officials in the five states that have full voting by mail to those serving in the rest of the states. In both cases, experience with the policy translates into support levels that are 50 percentage points higher.

Local election officials’ opinions about photo identification requirements are also conditional on whether their state already has the policy in place. In our survey, those in states with photo identification standards (either strictly required or with alternative workarounds) expressed the highest support when asked generally about a photo identification requirement. Officials in states with non-photo identification requirements expressed somewhat lower levels of support. Support was lowest — below 50 percent — among local election officials who serve in states with no identification requirement. (All categories for identification requirements are taken from the National Conference of State Legislatures.)

Finally, we refer to findings about online and automatic voter registration from our earlier Stewards of Democracy report published in 2018. We learned then that support for online voter registration and automatic voter registration was substantially higher among states that had already adopted those policies — more than twice as high in the case of automatic voter registration.

Dedication to Voters and Elections

As we engage with local election officials and work to understand their views, it’s helpful to also understand their level of commitment to voters and effective elections.

Based on their responses to this and previous surveys, local election officials express highly voter-centric ideals and responsibilities. Nearly 90 percent of them say that they “enjoy educating citizens about voting rules and procedures,” and roughly 70 percent agree that voter education, voter satisfaction, and encouraging voter turnout is part of their job. Meanwhile, 70 percent disagree that the primary responsibility of a local election official is to conduct the election and not to worry about voter education or satisfaction.

When we asked about support for this objective, we were not surprised to discover that almost two-thirds of local election officials face resource constraints that limit their ability to educate voters along with conducting elections.

“We also need to do our best to educate voters and get them engaged early so they can easily exercise their voting options. We are all in this together and if one of us fails, we all fail. So, we need to build each other up and understand our differences. No election is perfect. But we can all strive to be as efficient, secure, and fair as possible.”

– LOCAL ELECTION OFFICIAL, MID-SIZED JURISDICTION

We also asked whether or not local election officials should work to reduce demographic disparities in turnout, a question we thought might surface some disagreement because many of the reasons for turnout differences are beyond the control of local officials. Nonetheless, just under half of our respondents did think that reducing demographic disparities was part of their mandate.

The underlying structure of local election officials’ opinions is complex, impacted by jurisdiction size, partisanship, practical experience, and many factors not considered here. This is a ripe area for further research as we try to understand, support, and amplify local election officials’ viewpoints about election integrity and reform.

Part of “Stewards of Democracy,” a series on findings from the 2020 Democracy Fund/Reed College Survey of Local Election Officials

A modern, trusted, and equitable U.S. election system depends not just on laws or administrative procedures, but on people who are pivotal to delivering democracy: local election officials. In this post we examine the career trajectories, job satisfaction rates, and retirement plans of those playing this important role. Our research found generally good news about the experience and satisfaction of this workforce. We also found a few points of concern — specifically the significant proportion of local election officials eligible for retirement before the next general election.

Findings are based on survey and interview responses from more than 850 individuals who serve as chief local election officials — those in charge of elections in their jurisdiction — across the country. Whenever interpreting information about local election administration and administrators, it is important to pay attention to differences by jurisdiction size. For our analysis, we often present data sorted in this way, and all means are weighted to represent the overall population of local election officials. See the Reed College Early Voting Information Center website for further survey results broken down by jurisdiction size.

Wide Variation in Scope and Staffing

The specific array of election officials’ responsibilities varies enormously across states and between jurisdictions of different sizes. In the largest jurisdictions, these professionals are full-time officials, compensated with six-figure salaries and running operations with hundreds or even thousands of permanent staff, and they administer elections to millions of eligible citizens.

At the other end of the spectrum, more than one-third of officials tell us that their jobs are less than full-time and that they are responsible for far more than just administering elections. Notably, over half of our respondents (and by implication, half of local election officials nationwide) told us that their “staff” consists of only one person — that is, themselves.

Three-quarters of jurisdictions serving fewer than 5,000 registered voters have only one staff member working in the elections office, and 25 percent of jurisdictions serving between 5,000 and 25,000 voters have only one elections staffer. In the largest jurisdictions, by contrast, almost 85 percent of elections offices have 10 or more staff members — and many have more than 50.

Paths to Becoming a Local Election Official

The path to leadership as a local election official differs across and within states. It also differs by jurisdiction size as illustrated below. Whether officials are elected versus appointed is the most basic difference, but elected officials may also vary in whether they run for partisan versus non-partisan positions. Of note, research has shown that how officials are selected can be influential in shaping their incentives and policy goals.

While over half of local election officials are elected to their positions, less than 20 percent of these officials in the largest jurisdictions are elected. Among local election officials who are elected, 61 percent are elected in partisan elections, while the other 39 percent hold non-partisan positions. Our overall estimate of the percentage of local election officials who are elected versus appointed closely matches estimates obtained from surveys conducted by the Congressional Research Service.

Among officials who are appointed, those appointments may be made by county commissioners, a chief executive, or by elections boards or commissions, which themselves can be elective or appointive. Finally, appointive positions may or may not have civil service protections.

The responses in our survey indicate that the community of local election officials is highly experienced. The median official has been working in elections for over 12 years, having started in 2008. Local election officials in larger jurisdictions have a slightly longer tenure than those in smaller jurisdictions. Less than 5 percent of survey respondents reported that they had been working in election administration less than a year, and just over 10 percent said they had been in their current position for a year or less.

While local election officials in larger jurisdictions reported slightly longer tenures, those from smaller jurisdictions reported that they were older. Seventy-six percent of local election officials in jurisdictions serving under 5,000 voters are over age 50, while 60 percent of those in jurisdictions serving over 250,000 voters are over that age. In combination with findings about tenure, this would seem to indicate that officials in larger jurisdictions are starting in the elections field earlier in life than those in smaller jurisdictions, thus gaining more job experience at a younger age. Based on available data, it seems likely that a significant number of local election officials working in larger jurisdictions served previously in smaller- or medium-sized jurisdictions in something of a career “pipeline.” We do know that large jurisdictions with appointed election officials often conduct national searches for replacements. What is less well known is the breadth and diversity of these search pools.

“I took a part-time job in our community — we’re in a small town — working with what is like our chamber of commerce. Did that for 10 years, being active with the community… that led to me eventually running for office here, trying to have a voice in the direction of our community.”
– LOCAL ELECTION OFFICIAL, ELECTED POSITION

Local election officials in smaller jurisdictions are more than twice as likely as those in the largest jurisdictions to have no prior elections experience before starting their current job as the chief local election official.

The types of jobs and activities that current local election officials worked on before entering the elections field can also inform our understanding of the career pipeline. Our survey respondents were most likely (39 percent) to say that they were working in the private sector (non-elections related) before entering election administration. Another 21 percent said they had other roles in local government, and 13 percent were elected officials serving in roles other than election administration.

“Before this, my experience varied from construction to working in law offices… I worked in the office under the previous clerk as a part-time employee, then bumped up to full-time employee while working another full-time job. The previous clerk passed away in office and another deputy finished the term and then I ran and won the election.”
– LOCAL ELECTION OFFICIAL

As we think about career pathways, we must realize that for many local election officials, there isn’t a dedicated “career track” to follow into this profession. Larger jurisdictions might train up their assistant elections director or actively pursue outside candidates to replace a retiring official, while in a smaller jurisdiction an outgoing election official might be replaced by a first-time elected clerk with no previous elections experience.

Job Satisfaction Among Local Election Officials

For all the diverse pathways and job responsibilities involved, there is remarkable agreement that being a local election official is a rewarding career. Among our respondents, 55 percent said that they were “satisfied” with their job, and another 37 percent said they were “very satisfied.” This holds true regardless of the jurisdiction size.

An important caveat for all of our findings on job satisfaction is that the survey was conducted prior to the November 2020 election, which saw death threats and other attacks directed at local election officials. We asked these questions during the summer of 2020, when dedicated officials may have felt determined to stay focused on the positive aspects of their work. Perspectives on satisfaction may have shifted by November.

“There’s something at the end of the day, knowing the most fundamental aspect of our country was carried out from president to school board. …We had a transition of power, and people had faith in the results, in the votes counted being valid.”
– LOCAL ELECTION OFFICIAL

Across most questions probing specific areas of job satisfaction, there was very little disparity between local election officials serving in jurisdictions of different sizes. When grouped by size of jurisdiction, all groups on average agreed with about eight or nine of the 14 statements indicating satisfaction.

When asked how they feel about specific facets of their job, respondents unsurprisingly presented more varied opinions.

“Election offices on the local level should have more support. We are expected to give a herculean effort without the proper resources in space, employees, and equipment. We sacrifice our own health in order to make sure everything goes smoothly.”
– LOCAL ELECTION OFFICIAL, SMALLER JURISDICTION

Overall, approximately 50 percent of local election officials surveyed said that they were satisfied with their pay. Still, it’s important to understand that this high rate of pay satisfaction is uneven; when we isolate the responses of those from the largest jurisdictions, the figure jumps to 74 percent.

When we further probe into the elements of local election officials’ job satisfaction we find a few concerns. For example, resources and funding are a pain point, with over half of local election officials agreeing with the statement, “a lack of sufficient funding prevents me from doing my job well.” Local election officials share issues about their personal work experience as well. For example, less than 45 percent said that their workload was “reasonable.” Managing work-life balance is also a problem. While overall, most local election officials share that they are able to balance work and home priorities, the larger the jurisdiction is, the more this is a reported challenge.

It is important to note that 25 percent of respondents neither agreed nor disagreed with the question of balancing work and home priorities. To explore this further, we framed the question a different way. When asked if they agree with the statement, “I am able to leave problems at work,” local election officials surface more worries. Almost half of respondents said they agreed that they could leave problems at work, and 42 percent disagreed with the statement. In the responses to both of these questions, we see that for larger jurisdictions, balancing the stresses of work is harder.

“I’m exceeding my capacity for dealing with it. I’m tired, constantly. It’s stressful. I go home and crash, get up and do it again the next day. I think all election officials right now are kind of in that same boat. Presidential elections are always stressful but this one seems hyper stressful, at least to me personally.”
– LOCAL ELECTION OFFICIAL

Combining the pandemic with heightened political pressure, misinformation, and staffing concerns, the 2020 election created a uniquely stressful environment for local election officials. Some expressed this during interviews conducted in fall 2020.

Plans for Leaving the Field

Having an experienced body of local election officials is important to maintaining administrative competencies, knowledge of state laws and local procedures, as well as an intimate familiarity with the local electorate.

This local election official population is older, with many nearing retirement. Indeed, 74 percent of chief local election officials are over age 50, and a quarter are over age 65. Almost 35 percent report that they’re eligible to retire before the next presidential election in 2024, and this figure is more than 50 percent among local election officials in the largest jurisdictions. It should be noted that among those eligible to retire in the next four years, only 45 percent said that they planned on doing so. Even so, this expected wave of retirements diminishes today’s population of local election officials by 16 percent. When we asked those who were planning to retire to tell us their motivations for doing so, the top three reasons shared were a desire to move on to something else in their life (37 percent); that they had served long enough to retire (35 percent); and the political environment (23 percent). In addition, 20 percent noted they “no longer enjoy the position” or “want to do something else for work.”

Of the local election officials that are not eligible to retire soon, we asked whether they were planning to leave the field otherwise. Only 10 percent said yes, but a quarter responded that they were “unsure.” Similar to those planning for retirement, the most common reason they gave was a desire to move on to something else in their life (33 percent). But notably, job satisfaction concerns like the desire to move to a position with a better work-life balance (29 percent), desire to do something else for work (25 percent), and no longer enjoying the work (20 percent) were cited more often than, for example, the political environment, which factored more significantly into retirement decisions.

When we take into account those planning to retire and planning to leave for other reasons, the numbers give us pause. Overall, 22 percent of respondents said that they were planning on leaving the profession in the next four years, 49 percent said they weren’t planning on leaving, and 29 percent said they were unsure.

Most worrisome, local election officials in the largest jurisdictions were almost twice as likely to say that they’re planning to leave in the next four years. These officials have large and presumably experienced staff but very little is known about planned transitions in leadership. Local election official turnover in the largest jurisdictions has the potential to impact a huge number of American voters.

In survey follow-up interviews, local election officials were asked to discuss what transition-planning looks like in their jurisdiction. Few of them — whether elected or appointed — said they have formal transition plans or documented procedures in place for their eventual successors. Most said that they expect their second-in command (e.g., deputy clerk, assistant manager) to take over the role when they leave the position.

Paying Attention to the Pipeline

Given that more than half of all local election officials have served over a decade in their positions and express overall high levels of satisfaction with the job, there is much positive news about this field of professionals at the front lines of democracy. Still, traditional pain points — budgets, facilities, and compensation — remain, supporting assertions by many that the field is undervalued and under-resourced.

Further, with half of local election officials from the largest jurisdictions reporting that they are qualified for retirement, the shape and composition of the pipeline of talent to support this work is an important topic for future investigation. This means paying close attention to retirement and other turnover, as well as the degree to which these positions are filled by people who are diverse, experienced, and capable of playing this vital role.

Introduction to “Stewards of Democracy,” a series on findings from the 2020 Democracy Fund/Reed College Survey of Local Election Officials

Political observers expected the 2020 presidential election to be competitive and politically contentious long before it happened, but when the first caucuses and primaries kicked off early last year, few anticipated the enormous impact and unpredictable trajectory that the COVID-19 pandemic would have on state and local election administrators, their staff, and on the voting public. Yet as we know today, the system proved resilient in the face of this crisis. Voter turnout rates in November 2020 were the highest in over a century. Local election officials across the United States truly delivered democracy.

Today we begin a series of blog posts presenting perspectives and lessons learned from those who served in 2020 and lived the election every day as they administered one of our democracy’s most critical functions.

Local election officials are key authorities on how elections actually work. Their experiences shed light on how well our election system performs and what changes should be put into place to maintain efficient, accessible, equitable, and resilient elections in the future. Especially in this fraught historical moment, when the system has come under attack by both domestic and foreign actors, the insights, beliefs, and opinions of this group should be amplified.

Listening to the Stewards of Democracy

Election administration in the United States is highly decentralized. States and localities share the primary responsibilities for election administration with limited federal influence. State legislatures are the primary body invested with the responsibility for passing laws pertaining to election administration, and elections officials and some state regulatory boards provide oversight and advice to legislatures. While a few provisions in the U.S. Constitution provide a role for federal authority, the ultimate balance of federal, state, and local influence and control is constantly in tension — moving and changing, and subject to political, legal, technological, and economic forces.

America’s local election officials, as well as the offices they organize and staff they oversee, work at the intersection of these forces. Over 8,000 individuals serve as local clerks, chief clerk-recorders, supervisors, auditors, registrars, and other positions in counties, municipalities, and townships across the country. Together, these officials administer elections and deliver democracy to hundreds of millions of American citizens.

The Democracy Fund/Reed College Survey of Local Election Officials is intended to amplify and elevate the voices of these experts, understand their experiences and perspectives, and contribute to conversations about election administration and reform. In this series as in past reports, we refer to these street-level bureaucrats as the Stewards of Democracy because they are invested with the responsibility of managing and caring for voting and elections.

In upcoming posts, we will cover a variety of timely topics and offer the latest findings from our survey, including:

• Less than half of local election officials thought that voters were sufficiently informed of USPS delivery times to return their mail ballots in time in the November 2020 election.
• Almost three-quarters of local election officials consider voter education and satisfaction to be part of their responsibilities.

Almost 35 percent of local election officials will be eligible to retire before the 2024 election, including more than half of those in the largest jurisdictions (defined as serving more than 250,000 registered voters).

About the Survey and Interviews

The Democracy Fund/Reed College Survey of Local Election Officials and reports of its findings provide insights from local election officials across the country into the state of our elections system, election policies, and voter-centric practices.

In 2020, this survey was conducted online and sent to 3,000 randomly selected chief local election officials — those in charge of elections in their jurisdiction. We used a sampling methodology that increases the probability of selection based on the number of registered voters in the jurisdiction. Total responses were 857, for a response rate of 29 percent, which is slightly lower than the response rates to the 2018 and 2019 surveys, but still comparable to past surveys of this population.

Survey findings are often presented by jurisdiction size to understand differences in experiences.

• Fifty-eight percent of local election officials serve in jurisdictions of 5,000 or fewer voters.
• Twenty-seven percent serve in jurisdictions of 5,001 to 25,000 voters.
• Ten percent serve in jurisdictions of 25,001 to 75,000 voters.
• Six percent serve in jurisdictions of more than 75,000 voters.

While most officials serve in small jurisdictions, the vast majority of voters live in large jurisdictions — over 70 percent of voters live in jurisdictions with more than 75,000 voters and are served by only 500 officials. It’s important to consider the possible differences in scale, responsibility, and resources between different jurisdiction sizes when interpreting results from any survey of this population. Where overall results are presented, they are weighted to ensure that means can be generalized to local election officials nationwide. Further information about the sampling and weighting process is available at the Reed College Early Voting Information Center’s project website.

In addition to quantitative findings and open-ended responses from the survey, this blog series will also feature the words of officials from a set of in-depth interviews conducted by the Fors Marsh Group. Officials interviewed were chosen from varying states, jurisdiction sizes, elective/appointive histories, and tenures in office. For more information, see the report on this study.