Statement

Democracy Fund Statement on the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees Decision to Deny Tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones 

May 20, 2021

We call on the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees to reverse its decision to deny Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure. We have funded Hannah-Jones’s work at the Ida B. Wells Society, a project of UNC-Chapel Hill, since 2017. 

Hannah-Jones’s critical reporting on racism and segregation in schools and housing is unimpeachable, and the 1619 Project for which she won a Pulitzer Prize, is a profound contribution to the discussion about American democracy. Over the course of her 20-year career as an investigative journalist, she has epitomized speaking truth to power, in the tradition of Ida B. Wells. 

Hannah-Jones has earned her tenure position as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. To deny it to her is to lean into the culture of white supremacy that has plagued U.S. academic institutions for far too long. This decision highlights the very inequities that Hannah-Jones has dedicated her career to revealing.

We urge the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees to reverse their decision and immediately repair the harm that has been done. 

Democracy Fund remains firmly committed to building more equitable journalism in North Carolina, where we have contributed nearly $3 million over the past five years to organizations in the state including the Ida B. Wells Society, the NC Local News Lab Fund, PressOn, and Free Press’s Charlotte News Voices. 

Blog

Pursuing Diversity and Representation Among Local Election Officials

Paul Gronke, Paul Manson, Jay Lee, and Heather Creek
/
May 20, 2021

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

With growing recognition of the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion, organizations across many economic and government sectors have been re-examining the makeup of their teams. Diversity has known benefits to decision making and innovation, and in the administration of a representative government, it is arguably essential to carrying out the values of, as well as building trust and engagement in, a diverse constituency. The representative bureaucracy model, for example, argues that with diversity in the workplace, the public is better represented in administrative decisions. As the American population becomes increasingly multiracial and multiethnic, a governmental discipline whose workforce does not reflect the country’s diversity may indicate that it is constrained for some reason in its appeal or its recruitment pipeline. Related, a lack of diversity in an area of public service raises ethical concerns about whether all Americans have genuine access to that office.

In this post, we present information on diversity in the local election community, focusing primarily on the demographic categories of gender and race/ethnicity. It will surprise few familiar with this community to learn that the average local election official is white and female and that this description has not changed in some time. We suggest some possible explanations for this enduring demographic profile and also spotlight some of the nuances of a complex election system that could challenge efforts to increase its diversity. To take just one example, over half of local election officials are elected to their positions, as are other local officials, so candidate recruitment and voter choice also shape these demographics. Some jurisdictions require that candidates for this role reside in the local area, further limiting the pool of potential candidates.

Finally, there is an important caveat to our findings. Our survey focuses on the single official in charge of election administration within each jurisdiction. We know nothing about the composition of their staffs, which may be more diverse and may, in medium and larger offices, be the public’s main point of contact. From other research, we know a bit more about the racial makeup of poll workers, and that having more poll workers of the same races as voters can improve voter confidence. Interactions with staff and volunteers in the election process who better reflect local diversity may reduce some concerns about representation and enhance legitimacy and confidence.

There is much more to learn. In the final section of this post, we identify some outstanding questions about staff, mobility, and recruitment as important research areas for the future.

A Little-Changing Demographic Makeup

Who are the professionals doing the day-to-day work of running American elections? As we touched on in a preceding post, local election officials are not a population that mirrors the American public. The average local election official is far more likely to be white, a woman, and over age 50 than the general public, or even the voting-eligible public, which skews whiter and older.

The 2020 Democracy Fund/Reed College Survey of Local Election Officials found that almost 75 percent of these officials are over age 50, 80 percent are women, and over 90 percent are white (and non-Hispanic). Almost half had a college degree or even further education, and 44 percent identified as Republican — compared to 33 percent who identified as Democrat and 22 percent who described themselves as Independent (among the 72 percent of respondents who shared any party identification). Only 45 percent make more than $50,000 a year, and 60 percent are elected to their positions.

Before diving into this post’s exploration of gender and race/ethnicity diversity in particular, it’s helpful to understand the demographic stability among local election officials over the past 15 years, as well as a few areas where we see changes.

To do this, we look to three years of our own survey data and that of three surveys from the mid-2000s conducted by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). While changes observed over time can provide important information about developments in the community of local election officials, we warn against overinterpreting small changes in consecutive surveys, which may be due to sampling variability rather than to actual demographic shifts.

With this in mind, we see notable patterns since 2004. First, there is almost no movement in the racial diversity of chief local election officials. With the exception of our survey in 2020, all other mentioned surveys found that about 95 percent of officials were white. There is also minimal change in the proportion who are elected to their position, female, and Republican (or conservative, in the CRS surveys).

The patterns of race and partisanship are in part explained by the decentralized and federalized nature of election administration and the jurisdictions where local election officials come from. While local election officials as a collective do not reflect the diversity of our nation as a whole, they do tend to be more representative of their jurisdictions.

Where we do see notable changes are in age, education levels, and pay rates. In 2020, 74 percent of local election officials are over age 50, compared to 62 percent in 2008. In 2020 dollars, over 60 percent of local election officials were earning more than $50,000 in 2008 compared to just 45 percent now; apparently, their salaries have not kept pace with inflation. Finally, formal education is on the rise. Half of local election officials in our most recent survey reported having a college degree, compared to only 40 percent in 2004.

The race and partisanship of local election officials changed little over six years of surveys

Demographic 2004 2006 2008 2018 2019 2020
Female 75% 77% 76% 85% 83% 81%
White and non-Hispanic 94% 95% 94% 95% 94% 90%
College 40% 41% 44% 46% 51% 50%
$50,000 or more* 53% 61% 63% 43% 46% 45%
50 or older 63% 62% 62% 77% 74% 74%
Republican 51% 47% 44% 43% 44%
Elected 65% 58% 53% 58% 57%

*CRS surveys reported salaries greater than $40,000. Due to inflation, $40,000 in 2006 is approximately $50,000 in 2019.

CRS surveys reported whether respondents considered themselves to have a conservative ideology, rather than asking about a partisan identification.

Women and Local Election Administration

When we look across the entire U.S. political landscape, we find durable patterns of under-representation of women in public roles. Recent research shows that women currently hold 27 percent of U.S. Congressional seats, 31 percent of state legislature seats, and 30 percent of statewide elected offices, and only 32 of the 100 largest U.S. cities have women serving as mayor. According to 2019 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data, only 42 percent of county or local officials and administrators are women.

Yet, among local election officials, over 80 percent are women. Why do we see such a different gender composition of local election officials, more than half of whom are elected to their posts, compared to other elected and appointed office holders? There are at least three possible explanations.

First, election work may be filtered by gender in ways similar to other offices in government. For example, a national survey of municipal clerks found an even higher proportion of female clerks (90 percent) than we found in our survey of local election officials. Meanwhile, women make up only 1 percent of sheriffs in the U.S. Even district school boards, which are often perceived as more aligned with women’s interests, have just 44 percent of their seats held by women. Election administration has increasingly become a complex administrative occupation with a diverse skill set. But elections work may have been traditionally viewed as a more clerical role, particularly the registration component. Women may have been directed toward or been more willing to accept positions in election administration. We also note that, historically, some of the more important roles in the conduct and adjudication of elections has been assigned to roles dominated by men, such as sheriff or judge. These patterns may account for the historical and current gender balance of the profession.

A second possibility is a gatekeeping effect among local party leaders combined with the structures that help candidates win elections. In this scenario, women would be differentially allowed “through the gate” to run as local election officials, possibly because elections work is unlikely to translate into higher office. As a potentially related point of reference, our survey asked local election officials if they have an interest in running for elected office (different from their current role, if elected). Overall, only 11 percent indicated they were interested, a number that drops to 9 percent among only female respondents. We lack good comparative data on other local elected offices to conclude that these totals are high or low and whether gatekeeping is going on.

Third, elections work may be sought out by women and less so by men for some reason. It could be that elections administration, especially in smaller offices, offers flexibility that supports a better balance between work and responsibilities at home, which other studies report still fall disproportionally to women in American society. While this may seem to be a surprising notion to local election officials who have just completed an incredibly time-consuming election year, women who responded to our survey were somewhat more likely than men to say that they can balance work and home priorities. Of note, women in larger offices were more likely to tell us that work-life balance was a problem than were women in smaller offices. What we are seeing in these findings may not be a preference among women, but rather a signal that they are more often forced to balance priorities because of fewer career options or cultural norms and expectations.

Chart showing local election officials who are women are more likely to say they achieve work-life balance

Gender Differences by Jurisdiction Size

The responsibilities of a local election official vary greatly by the size of the jurisdiction, and not surprisingly, so does the “average” local election official. Those in larger jurisdictions are significantly more likely to be men, non-white, college educated, paid more than $50,000 a year, Democrats or Independents, and appointed to their positions than those in smaller jurisdictions.

Local election officials in larger jurisdictions are more likely to be male, less likely to be white
Jurisdiction by number of voters
Demographic Overall 0 to 5,000 5,001 to 25,000 25,001 to 100,000 100,001 to 250,000 >250,000
Female 81% 84% 85% 69% 65% 47%
White and non–Hispanic 90% 90% 91% 89% 93% 80%
College 50% 43% 55% 58% 77% 82%
$50,000 or more 45% 23% 69% 80% 98% 95%
50 or older 74% 77% 70% 66% 68% 61%
Republican 44% 44% 50% 42% 30% 17%
Elected 57% 64% 54% 36% 32% 18%

Being the chief elections officer in a larger jurisdiction often has more prestige. It often requires more steps up the ladder or winning what is likely a more competitive and expensive election — all of which may influence the gender of those chosen or self-selecting for such a position. Large-jurisdiction positions are also more likely to involve stresses that challenge work-life balance. Indeed, local officials serving in larger jurisdictions were less positive on the question of balancing work and home priorities.

Chart showing local election officials in larger jurisdictions are less likely to say they achieve work-life balance

We see that female local election officials also, on average, earn less than their male counterparts, but these averages may be driven at least in part by jurisdiction characteristics. That is to say, the observed pay differences between men and women may be a function of differential pay by jurisdiction size combined with men’s greater likelihood to serve in larger, better-paying jurisdictions.

Bar chart showing that local election officials who are female earn less on average than those who are male

Despite this disparity, a majority of local election officials, male and female, told us that they were satisfied with their pay. Women were slightly more likely to raise concerns about pay, but not markedly so.

Chart showing local election officials, regardless of gender, were generally satisfied with their pay

Women are over-represented overall in our data — and in any survey of local election officials — primarily because of the number of small jurisdictions. It may be that women find the role attractive in these smaller jurisdictions because it is more likely to be part time, supporting work-life balance. It may also be that the nature of the work in a small jurisdiction is perceived to be more appropriate for women through the lens of traditional gender roles, as misguided and outdated as these perceptions may be. Perceptions that operate within thousands of counties and municipalities nationwide would have a powerful effect.

This brings us to a concern: If work-life balance is a key factor in women’s participation as local election officials, threats to that balance could cause a shift in gender composition. The 2020 election created some cracks in the veneer of job satisfaction. If this continues, the cost/benefit calculation could shift, and so could the demographics of the local election community.

“I would recommend [becoming a local election official to others] … I think as long as you have a good understanding of what you’re heading, and what you’re in for, and you have a plan for that, you can have a life balance with family and friends and work. You need to have a plan for that. Then yeah, I would still recommend it.”

– LOCAL ELECTION OFFICIAL, OCTOBER 2020

Race, Ethnicity, and Representative Bureaucracy

Next we explore racial and ethnic under-representation. Approximately 90 percent of local election officials are white and non-Hispanic. That is substantially more than the proportion of white, non-Hispanic people within the U.S. citizen voting age population, according to data from the 2020 Congressional Election Survey (CES). This difference persists even when we compare local election officials to other state and local officials and administrators. Just under 78 percent of state and local officials and administrators across the country are white according to 2019 U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data.

Local election officials are disproportionately white when compared to the general population
Demographic Proportion of local election official population Proportion of U.S. public (CES, 18+)
Female 81% 52%
White and non-Hispanic 90% 69%
College 50% 41%
$50,000 or more 45% 51% (family)
50 or older 74% 49%
Republican 44% 40%
Elected 57%

Drawing any conclusions about the reasons for these patterns is a challenge for our study because there are so few non-white respondents in our survey. In the subsequent figures, we have pooled the three years of the Democracy Fund/Reed College Survey of Local Election Officials so as to make some comparisons. We also use “white” to refer to the white and non-Hispanic population.

As a first cut, it’s important to recognize that a vast majority (70 percent) of local election jurisdictions have a citizen voting-age population that is over 90 percent white, according to the most recent American Community Survey. Three-quarters of the smallest jurisdictions have voting age populations that are 93 percent or more white, while 50 percent of the largest jurisdiction have populations that are 65 percent or less white. As a point of comparison, the citizen voting age population in the United States overall is 68 percent white.

Bar chart showing almost 70 percent of jurisdictions are more than 90 percent white

The reason these numbers come out the way they do is that non-white voters in the United States are relatively concentrated in metropolitan areas and certain states and regions. To illustrate how this works, we randomly selected one voter from each jurisdiction to be a local election official. The result was that our hypothetical workforce of local election officials was still 88 percent white — nearly the same as the 90 percent that we observed in our survey.

The federalized and decentralized nature of election administration (and many other governmental functions) combined with some jurisdictions’ requirements that election official candidates be local residents creates a structural barrier to a more diverse and nationally representative population of local election officials. Efforts to diversify this field may require extra emphasis on recruiting job applicants for staff positions, leadership positions, and candidates from outside the jurisdiction. What we don’t know — and where we think more research is necessary — is how these structural barriers impact local government more generally, and whether and how some local governmental agencies have overcome these barriers.

If we flip our lens and look from the perspective of voters, the situation appears a bit different. Our survey, combined with Census data, shows that non-white voters are somewhat more likely to be served by non-white local election officials.

The majority of white local election officials serve predominantly white jurisdictions. Black local election officials serve a much more racially and ethnically diverse population. Because of small numbers, we combined local election officials in other racial categories (including Native American, Asian American, and Hawaiian or Pacific Islander) and find they too serve a more diverse population. The starkest under-representation in our data is among Hispanic local election officials: We find so few that we are unable to compare these officials with jurisdiction populations.

Bar chart showing local election officials who are not white are more likely to serve more diverse electorates

The size of the jurisdiction once again appears to drive much of these dynamics. Smaller jurisdictions are less likely to have significant populations of non-white voters — and are also more likely to be served by white local election officials.

Bar chart that shows smaller jurisdictions generally have fewer non-white voters

The overall population of local election officials is significantly more racially homogenous than the voting age population, but local election officials who are not white do serve more diverse populations. Here our survey sheds further light: When we asked if election officials “should work to reduce demographic disparities in voter turnout,” 80 percent to 90 percent of non-white local election officials responded in the affirmative — almost twice as high as white local election officials asked the same question.

Bar chart showing that non-white local election officials are more likely to believe they should play a role in reducing voter turnout disparities

For Further Research

As we have described, understanding diversity and enhancing representation among local election officials and their staffs is a complex undertaking. There are many potential reasons for the findings we report here, and further research is needed to reveal complexities and patterns more completely, to understand the reasons behind them, and identify productive steps. We look forward to engaging the practitioner and research community on these questions in the months and years ahead.

We are limited in our ability to investigate some of the potential reasons for the gender and racial disparities we found due to the limited number of officials who are non-white overall and across jurisdiction size categories, but more broadly, due to the inherent limits of survey sampling for a population of 8,000 officials spread across states, counties, and townships and municipalities. Qualitative research involving focus groups and in-depth interviews may be necessary to probe how current officials, those who appoint them, and even those who vote for them, think about the role of a local election official as compared to other local offices.

One complexity we confront in this post is whether or not the overrepresentation of women in local election administration is a good thing, given the traditional underrepresentation of women in positions of power, especially in elective offices, or whether it indicates that women are being channeled to an area of local governmental work that has been historically undervalued and underfunded. Our suspicions, based on our data and other patterns of gender representation in local government more broadly, is that both are somewhat true. There is some evidence that job mobility is lower for women than for men in the election community. Among the local election officials we surveyed who serve in jurisdictions with greater than 100,000 registered voters, 45 percent of men said they have worked in another election jurisdiction, while only 20 percent of women answer similarly. Overall, 18 percent of men say they have worked in more than one jurisdiction versus 13 percent of women. It remains important for further research to explore if these differences result from barriers to upward mobility, filtering by gender, or other factors.

Also with respect to gender, we believe future research should focus on understanding the personal experiences and pathways for local election officials across their careers. While our study is informed by various theories on why women are over-represented in this field, interviews and discussions with local election officials could better explore the dynamics that result in a role overwhelmingly served by women. Turning to race and ethnicity, as noted, our research is focused on the person holding the chief local election official position. While the individual in this role can be influential, we also know that the race and ethnicity of the rest of a local government office staff matter. Further research on the composition of local election office staff and volunteers could better detail the diversity and inclusion of these offices, as well as voter experience.

We were able to show that non-white officials are more likely to be serving in communities with higher percentages of non-white voters, but the still-high level of homogeneity indicates that the elections community, especially in smaller jurisdictions, has too narrow of a recruitment pipeline. Describing the career pipeline, highlighting successful efforts that have been made in expanding recruitment pools, and understanding who constitutes the pool of staff and elections officials of the future are all fertile areas for research.

If the elections community seeks strategies for encouraging diversity in its ranks, it will need to wrestle with the multiple paths that people take to assuming this role. A heavy reliance on elections as a selection method in the smallest jurisdictions puts a damper on hiring-based methods for promoting diversity in a profession, and efforts to bolster diversity may require coordination with former elected positions and political parties (if the races are partisan).

Efforts to expand and diversify the pipeline for service in local election administration will need to take into account substantial structural barriers due to the federalized and decentralized nature of American election administration and the significant gaps in pay, prestige, budgets, and administrative powers between small and large jurisdictions. We know from conversations with officials that state recruitment rules or residency requirements may be one barrier. But we do not know the steps local election offices take to broaden their recruitment for all positions, and if diversity and inclusion is something they focus on in these hiring practices. Related, larger jurisdictions are well positioned to hire an internal candidate like a deputy director who has been “training up” through the department for several years, or to run nationwide recruitment searches for new officials. Still, the vast majority of jurisdictions are not running national-scale job searches for an open position.

In a previous post, we more deeply discussed the age of local election officials, which is another important aspect of their demographic makeup. These professionals are older as a group than they were even 15 years ago, while at the same time being better educated yet earning comparatively less. Age and pay satisfaction are two things that can cause local election officials to leave the profession. How do decreases in compensation, especially in combination with the increase in qualifications that we also see, affect who sticks with the job or moves on? What is, in fact, the “normal” rate of retirement of officials after a presidential election, and how does the rate of retirement in 2020 compare? Further research pursuing these questions will fuel a robust dialogue about what the future of local election administration should look like in the United States.

There is much yet to learn about how recruitment and advancement in election administration helps or hinders diversity. Our 2020 survey findings point to challenges here, as well as potential opportunities. This is just the beginning of the data-driven story, and we hope to see future research engage these questions.

 

The authors wish to thank Bridgett A. King, associate professor of political science at Auburn University, for her feedback on this research.

Blog

When it’s Time to Learn Fast: How our Learning Processes Changed to Meet the Moment in the Summer of 2020

May 18, 2021

We tried something different. As a foundation, we are only as effective as our understanding of and alignment to what is occurring in the fields we fund. That’s tough to do in a complex environment. During a crisis, it’s even tougher. Try several crises.

In the summer of 2020, the grantees of our Digital Democracy Initiative (DDI) were revving up to combat a trifecta of mis- and disinformation about COVID-19, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the 2020 election. And we wanted to know how we could support them — not with slow, drawn-out information-gathering and analysis, but with something more agile. 

We had to rethink the way we learn. 

We didn’t have the luxury to wait for researchers to conduct a study and package it up for us to leisurely read nine months later. Nor did we want to ask our grantees to spare time that could be better used to do the work. So, we decided to approach our research and evaluation a little differently. We made a decision to minimize our plans for a developmental evaluation into a set of learning conversations that prioritized strengthening and facilitating information flows among our grantees over answering our own set of learning questions. 

We also made a conscious decision to do something researchers would not advise (because of possible observer effects): we broke the fourth wall of objectivity. Our Associate Director of DDI and our Strategy and Learning Manager joined in on the focus groups facilitated by our evaluator. This had positive implications on our construction of knowledge. We were able to hear and respond to concerns in real time as our grantees were experiencing it and extract key points outside of those captured by our evaluators. Grantees were also able to learn from each other in real time and see other parts of the wider field they contribute to. While the resulting report, Responding to the Moment, synthesized much of this information, it was invaluable to have immediate access to it. 

Our grantees expressed gratitude for the time to connect, particularly during the pandemic lockdown because some felt increasingly siloed. Hunkered down within the circles they were already in pre-pandemic, some felt it a challenge to do what the moment demanded: connect with new folks in order to advance the work. 

We learned that one of the largest gaps in the mis- and disinformation network space existed between researchers and activists. While field-building and connecting across network gaps is a critical tactic for the Digital Democracy Initiative, this was an urgent learning for us. Leaning into making connections across fields of work is vital to successfully attacking the complex problem of mis- and disinformation. We have begun this through follow-up meetings and we are already seeing our grantees make these connections more explicitly in their work.

In our real-time learning, we made sure to center the experiences of people of color and women, with special attention to women of color who fall within both groups and experience unique circumstances because of this intersectionality. One important learning that resulted from this centering was the consequences and inequity of uniformed dollars in the philanthropic field due to “parachuting” and “trendiness.” As money was pouring into the mis- and disinformation space, dollars were going to new actors parachuting into the space for those resources as opposed to going to long-term actors who already worked on these issues. Additionally, a surface understanding of the challenges in the field made it likely that grantmakers would give their well-intentioned dollars to solutions that were trending, but not necessarily effective instead of buttressing effective efforts that activists and researchers were already cultivating. We have worked to elevate the voices and work of those who have been working in this space over time, and ensure funders understand the importance of that work as an anchor in this field.

These learnings underscore the inequitable ways that philanthropic support rarely goes into the hands of those most impacted by the problem and therefore best suited to address the problems. Centering the perspectives and experiences of those most negatively impacted by disinformation, people of color and women, allowed us to best understand our points of leverage for field solutions that are either out of the focus of or deprioritized by a broader philanthropic sector that is overwhelmingly wealthy and white.

The summer of 2020, like other crisis moments, was filled with chaos, trauma, and uncertainty. We were surprised by the learning that can happen even in the midst of crises when we strip away the formalities and reduce the amount of time and attention being taken away from important work being done in the field. Many of those crises continue today, and the changes we made to our learning will extend past the summer of 2020. We are thankful to our grantees for their time and honesty. The lessons we learned come from them. 

 

Blog

How Local Election Officials Prepared to Serve Voters During the Pandemic

Paul Gronke, Paul Manson, Jay Lee, and Heather Creek
/
May 11, 2021

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

The 2020 election year was historic on many fronts. A decades-long deepening of political, social, economic, and cultural divides made for a tremendously volatile and competitive electoral landscape. What’s more, as a global pandemic took hold, many wondered how it would be possible to hold free and fair elections amid such a public health crisis.

As part of our 2020 Democracy Fund/Reed College Survey of Local Election Officials (conducted in summer 2020), we asked local election officials an extensive battery of questions about how they were preparing for the upcoming November election, including a special set of questions tailored to COVID-19 challenges.

The Realities of Different Jurisdiction Sizes

In each blog post in this series, we have pointed to the significance of jurisdiction size when describing and understanding the local election environment and the role of the local administrator.

Election readiness is no different and, accordingly, pandemic-related issues didn’t impact all local election officials in the same way — even if they were serving in the same state. Some large jurisdictions received a lot of media attention in 2020 because they had so many polling places and long voter lines. But small jurisdictions faced many of their own challenges as they worked to rapidly respond to shifting requirements and implement new procedures.

The fundamental distinction relates to workload, support, and staff. Local election officials in the smallest jurisdictions are more likely to wear several hats as town clerks, county recorders, or other roles. Elections work amounts to a small proportion of the job responsibilities for about half of small-jurisdiction officials, and as a result, these officials had even less working time to adjust to the realities of running elections amid a pandemic.

Chart showing that local election officials in smaller jurisdictions have more tasks than just elections

Additionally, small jurisdictions are much more likely to have a very small staff: About 75 percent of local election officials in jurisdictions that have under 5,000 voters are the sole individual administering elections in their jurisdiction, and many of these are only part-time workers.

Preparing to serve a few hundred voters is obviously a very different enterprise than doing so for millions of voters. Nonetheless, we flag for the reader that the ability to adapt to the new demands placed on local election officials in 2020 may have been crucially dependent on size, staff, and other resources. Simply having a larger election office allowed for some redundancy and support during the pandemic. We heard from a number of local election officials in small jurisdictions that a single positive COVID-19 test would require them to close their offices for 14 days because their small teams all work in close proximity. An official working in a larger jurisdiction would be able to rotate staff or lean on other parts of the organization to avoid such an impact.

Election Preparedness and COVID-19

Small jurisdictions were the least likely to say that they had to adjust their election planning in light of COVID-19. While all of our respondents in jurisdictions with more than 100,000 registered voters said that they had to adjust to the pandemic, only about 85 percent of local election officials in jurisdictions with under 25,000 registered voters said the same. We suspect these differences may be simply a function of scale — adjusting for things like socially-distanced voting is probably easier in rural settings and small municipalities.

Chart showing local election officials in smaller jurisdictions were least likely to say they had to adjust election planning due to COVID-19.

One of the specific changes that we were interested in was whether local election officials would have to consolidate polling places, leaving some voters farther away from a voting location than normal. Consolidation of polling places became a flashpoint for political and legal conflict during primary elections in the spring and summer.

By mid-summer when our survey was being conducted, only about 10 percent of local election officials were considering precinct consolidation during the November election in response to COVID-19, although for larger jurisdictions this proportion reached about 30 percent. Larger jurisdictions are more likely to have many polling places, while some smaller jurisdictions might have only a single voting location that cannot be shuttered.

Chart showing anticipated consolidation of polling places due to COVID-19 was low on average, mostly driven by larger districts.

When asked why they were considering consolidating some polling locations, a clear majority of respondents cited facilities constraints as part of their reasoning, and slightly under half cited poll worker issues. Resource and staffing constraints were much less common, and very few respondents said that they were required by the state to consolidate locations.

Chart showing facilities and poll worker constraints were most common reasons for polling place consolidation.

When asked about their preparations for conducting the election amid the pandemic, local election officials expressed a fairly high degree of confidence across a number of dimensions, such as having enough personal protective equipment (PPE) for their staff and volunteers, safely accommodating staff and volunteers in the workplace, and being able to utilize their permanent workforce and traditional polling places.

Chart showing local officials largely expressed confidence in their preparations for conducting the election amid COVID-19.

Presented with a set of questions asked in previous years to understand staffing and resources, local election officials expressed high levels of confidence in their ability to obtain accessible voting machines and polling places but much less confidence in obtaining poll workers, particularly bilingual poll workers. Note that our figure below shows confidence levels only for respondents who agreed that a given resource applied to them. While 95 percent of our survey participants responded that the first three resources applied to them, only 40 percent said having bilingual poll workers did, which corresponds with the proportion of those federally required to have such support. Thus, the lack of poll workers with bilingual skills is likely to be even more acute than our data reflect.

Chart showing local election officials were least confident about having sufficient poll workers — especially bilingual ones — for Election 2020.

Where Local Election Officials Found Support in Responding to the Pandemic

With so many local election officials reporting that they had to change their processes in response to COVID-19, we wanted to know what sources they turned to for information and which were most helpful.

Officials were most likely to seek resources close to home: in their local jurisdiction or to state elections offices, state associations, and/or state health authorities. About 35 percent of respondents consulted information from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) directly, and other federal and national groups were referenced less frequently. Some state election directors and state associations may have used resources from federal and non-governmental organizations to inform their recommendations.

Chart showing local election officials were most likely to consult local or state resources to inform their pandemic response.

Information from state elections offices and professional organizations was also deemed to be the most helpful, compared to most of the other sources (all of which received similar ratings). Local election officials participating in our survey also had the option to write in a resource they consulted if not reflected in our list. We were not surprised to learn that those who chose to do this also rated their write-in resources very highly overall. These other resources included local emergency management departments, regional election official groups, the United States Postal Service, and local and national news sources.

Chart showing local election officials were most likely to find local or state resources helpful to their pandemic response.

Managing a Surge in Absentee Voting and Voting by Mail

One of the biggest effects of the pandemic on voting was a large increase in voting by mail. States came into the November 2020 election with varying levels of experience conducting elections by mail. At that point, five states conducted all elections by mail, and five states allowed any voter to sign up for permanent absentee voting and automatically receive a mail ballot for each election. In the November 2016 election, about 20 percent of the public voted by mail, but this varied from less than 5 percent in states that required an approved excuse to vote by mail to more than 87 percent in states that conduct all elections by mail.

Responses to a series of questions about mail voting preparation indicate that the majority of administrators felt prepared to run an expanded vote-by-mail system in November 2020. As expected, this varied based on the state’s prior experience with widespread mail voting. Most officials felt confident that they could obtain enough ballots and envelopes to meet expanded demand for mail voting; those in states with less vote-by-mail experience were about 15 percentage points less likely to feel confident than those in experienced states.

Other measures of mail voting preparation showed a wider spread between more experienced and less experienced states. Close to 95 percent of officials in states with more mail voting experience were confident that they had sufficient staff and resources to process increased numbers of mail ballots; fewer than 65 percent of officials in states with less experience shared that confidence. Similarly, officials in states with mail voting experience expressed higher confidence than other states — by more than 25 percentage points — that their state’s timeline was sufficient for all of the steps involved in requesting, mailing, returning, and processing mail ballots. The gap between more and less experienced mail voting states was much smaller on the issue of whether voters were sufficiently informed about the standard U.S. Postal Service delivery times that would impact whether a ballot arrived in time to meet state deadlines and be counted.

Overall, local election officials felt relatively confident about their process heading into November 2020. Over 90 percent said they would be fully prepared to administer a safe, secure, and accessible election. As we have seen in other results, election officials are less positive in their assessment of things outside of their control. For example, one in five raised concerns about whether they would have adequate funding for their jurisdiction or whether the other offices in the state would be sufficiently prepared for November, and under half said that offices across the country would be prepared to run a safe, secure, and accessible election.

Chart showing local election officials generally expressed confidence in their readiness for Election 2020.

Stewards Rising to the Challenge

The 2020 election was historic and an outlier in many respects, but some of the changes and lessons it generated may endure. Some pain points reported by our respondents in that year — sufficient bilingual poll workers and insufficient resources and trained staff — may have been magnified in 2020 but have been evident in prior years of this research.

Moreover, local election officials accomplished something extraordinary in 2020. They engaged a variety of resources, and through rapid learning and adaptation early in the pandemic, took a range of steps to protect voters and workers during a public health crisis. They prepared for more Americans than ever to vote by mail, even in states less experienced with the practice. And generally, they felt well prepared to deliver democracy, even under these conditions. In rising to the challenges of 2020, election officials revealed not only their competence, dedication, and grit, but also possibilities and potential for further strengthening our election system.

Blog

How Local Election Officials Trained for the Job, Ensured Cybersecurity, and Adapted to the Pandemic

Paul Gronke, Paul Manson, Jay Lee, and Heather Creek
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May 4, 2021

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.

Chart showing that most local election officials report receiving training, but effectiveness varies

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.

Bar chart showing that ongoing training is required for most local election officials, but many are motivated to attend for other reasons

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.

Stacked bar chart displaying the large proportions of local election officials that performed most of the tasks associated with cybersecurity

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).

Bar chart displaying that local election officials in smaller jurisdictions were less likely to report that they had completed plans to conduct background checks

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.

Stacked bar chart displaying that local election officials feel well-guided on election security by state and federal authorities

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

Figure showing that local election officials in larger jurisdictions are more likely to belong to a state, national, or international association

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.

Bar chart depicting that amid the pandemic, local election officials were most likely to consult a local or state resource for guidance

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.

Bar chart depicting local election officials in large jurisdictions consulted more sources for COVID-19 planning

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.

Blog

Perspectives on Election Policy and Practice from the Local Officials Who Make It Happen

Paul Gronke, Paul Manson, Jay Lee, and Heather Creek
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April 27, 2021

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.Local election officials are more confident in the election system than the general public, particularly within their state

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.

Local election officials serving larger jurisdictions are more confident in the integrity of the election nationwide

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.

Local election officials show partisan differences in their confidence in elections similar to those in the general public

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.

Local election officials differ from the public in their support for many voting reforms, with the exception of voter ID requirements

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.

Partisan differences on election policies among local election officials largely mirror those in the general public

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 who have experience with vote-by-mail and Election Day registration are more likely to support these policies

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.)

Local election officials in states with photo ID requirements are more likely to support these policies

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.Local election officials express voter-centric views about their role

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.

Report

Looking Forward to the Future of Democracy

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April 22, 2021

The volatility of current events makes one thing clear: Our democracy is vulnerable to disruptions many haven’t even imagined. While we cannot predict the future, we can practice futuring — the creative discipline of tuning into the signals, imagining what’s possible, and choosing paths that lead us toward hope.

In fall 2020, Democracy Fund collaborated with Dot Connector Studio and a diverse group of thinkers on a futuring project called Democracy TBD. Together with our collaborators, we considered how the pandemic, racial unrest, political division, and other concerns might spark a cycle of disruption and reorganization for our democracy. We surfaced key themes — like ongoing political polarization — and identified the potential implications for our democracy.

American democracy was born out of an experimental mindset and radical imaginings; we believe these are still needed for it to survive. For Democracy Fund, this is only the beginning of our futuring venture.

Statement

Statement on Derek Chauvin Verdict

April 20, 2021

Today, we joined millions of people across the country in breathing a collective sigh of relief at the outcome of the Derek Chauvin trial. Together, we marked a too-rare instance in which the justice system held a police officer fully accountable for the murder of an innocent Black man. 

Despite the verdict, there is more work to do. Elected officials continue to target Black and brown communities with repressive election laws to gain political advantage and consolidate power. Social media platforms still amplify hate and racism, inspiring violence on and offline. And too many vital news outlets led by and serving people of color are under threat and attack just for doing their jobs.

Determined organizers are fighting these threats — in fact, this trial would not have been possible without their efforts to bring national attention to this murder almost a year ago. Despite perpetual oppression rooted in racism and white supremacy, BIPOC-led organizations continue to serve as a driving force pushing toward a more open and just democracy. 

We know there is a delicate balance between the relief today’s victory brings and the road ahead. This journey to a more perfect union does not end with one verdict, nor is justice achieved in one trial. We remain committed to investing in BIPOC-led organizations and amplifying the voices of Black and brown people, while challenging our own assumptions and checking our philanthropic privilege.

Democracy Fund will continue to stand with and support grantees, partners, organizers, and activists who are turning anger into action and working to create a democracy that serves not just a select few, but all. 

Blog

Understanding the Career Journeys of Today’s Local Election Officials and Anticipating Tomorrow’s Potential Shortage

Paul Gronke, Paul Manson, Jay Lee, and Heather Creek
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April 20, 2021

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.

The difference in staffing between large and small jurisdictions is striking

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.

Election official in larger jurisdictions are less likely to be elected to their positions

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.

Local election officials, especially those in larger districts, are highly experienced

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.

Local election officials in smaller jurisdictions tended to be older than their larger-jurisdiction counterparts

“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.

Working in the business sector is the most common prior experience of local election officials

“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

Local election officials report high levels of satisfaction with their job across all jurisdiction sizes

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.

Local election officials in larger jurisdictions are more satisfied with pay, but report more challenges with work-life balance and leaving problems at work

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.

Significant proportions of chief local election officials plan to move on before the next general election, especially those in the largest jurisdictions

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.

Blog

Amplifying the Perspectives of Officials at the Front Lines of Elections

Paul Gronke, Paul Manson, Jay Lee, and Heather Creek
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April 19, 2021

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.

Democracy Fund
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