Original post on electiononline
The legal, administrative, and political landscape of election administration has experienced rapid change over the past two decades. Each election seems to bring a new set of challenges, prompting another wave of change and reform.
In light of these pressures, we asked local election officials (LEOs) to share their experiences navigating this shifting landscape.
In this week’s post we explore what LEOs think about policy change and how technology has impacted election administration. Our previous blog posts highlighted the enormous variation in size across jurisdictions. This variability impacts workload, election-related responsibilities, and professional satisfaction. Size also impacts attitudes about reform, change, and technology.
LEOs Want to Be Involved and Consulted
When reforms occur, LEOs are often left out of the conversation. This was reflected strongly in our survey. LEOs told us that those working at the front line were seldom included in legislative debates over new laws and procedures.
Among the comments we received:
I would like the legislature to consult local election officials before implementing changes and actually pay attention to our concerns.
Our legislators keep making changes to election law without consulting those of us that are in the trenches every day. Making our job more difficult and sometimes making it more difficult for our voters.
LEOs Support More Standardization
In the 2018 survey, we provided LEOs a change to speak “in their own voices” about how ways they would change or reform election administration.
One theme that came up regularly was standardization. LEOs told us that different laws, rules, and procedures within and across states, and, in a few cases, different elections over the year, was something they’d like to see addressed. At the same time, other LEOs shared with us some frustrations that they had insufficient flexibility to adapt to their local environment.
In the 2019 survey, we took these ideas and gave the full sample a chance to weigh in on various ways to streamline, standardize, and reform election administration.
LEOs expressed a clear preference for standardization of election rules and procedures. 72% want to standardize election administration across their state, and 66% want to do so across the nation.
We are not arguing that LEOs necessarily believe that “one size fits all” in election administration. Rather we think the survey responses provide a counterweight to the frequently made claim that, in election administration, one size does not fit all. As the Presidential Commission on Election Administration found in 2014, the truth surely lies somewhere in the middle.
In contrast to the responses on standardization, we found far fewer LEOs endorsed the idea of allowing different rules and procedures in rural and urban areas. 48% opposed differentiating the rules and only 30% endorsed the idea of a different set of rules. (The remaining 22% were unsure.)
In addition to these ideas which percolated upwards from our survey, we also asked about a set of reforms that regularly appear during debates of election reform:
- 61% of LEOs support consolidating local, state, and federal elections to take place at the same time. Only 16% opposed this idea, with the remaining 22% neutral to the idea.
- Making Election Day a holiday and Election Day registration divided our respondents evenly, and 21% were neutral.
- 68% of LEOs opposed moving Election Day to a weekend, with only 15% supporting the idea.
- Internet/online voting has little support: 75% of LEOs oppose the idea and 12% support it.
Respondents shared in their comments that poll worker recruitment and line management influenced their opinion on changing the date for Election Day. Those who supported it said that a holiday or weekend Election Day might broaden who can or is willing to volunteer as a poll worker, and increase options for LEOs.
There is Cautious Optimism on Technology
LEOs tend to express positive–if cautious–views about new election technologies. 69% of respondents agreed that new technology has “dramatically improved election administration” for their jurisdiction, and 52% agreed that the benefits outweigh the risks of new election technology. When asked about the timeliness of new technology, 64% say that “it is best to wait until all the bugs have been worked out.”
This caution does not appear to translate into a desire to slow down: only 13% of our respondents agree that the country has “moved too quickly to adopt new election technologies.”
Not all jurisdictions are equal when it comes to accepting new technologies. Figure 1 shows that LEOs in larger jurisdictions are more likely to express “pro-technology” views than those in smaller jurisdictions. 65% of LEOs from small jurisdictions agree that new tech has “dramatically improved election administration” for their jurisdiction, while over 90% of LEOs in the largest jurisdictions agree with the statement.
We suspect the difference in opinions about technology is driven by their professional experiences and work environment. For larger jurisdictions (> 250,000 registered voters), technological changes may have arrived earlier and were more easily integrated into their workflow because, as we saw last week, larger jurisdictions are more likely to have their own dedicated IT staff and other personnel to help them manage these changes.
Looking Ahead – Involving Local Officials and Sharing Experiences
What do these messages on change and technology tell us about election administration and election reform in the United States?
First, LEOs are not averse to change or reform. The pain point for local officials is when change is too rapid, without sufficient consultation and with inadequate funding.
Second, LEOs should be involved earlier in policy debates. This gives legislators the opportunity to hear what has worked well and what has worked less well at the “street level”. As one LEO wrote, they would:
[E]ncourage state and federal legislators to volunteer during elections to gain knowledge and value to proposed legislative change and how those changes may impact election facilitation.
Third, one way to engage local officials is through their state associations and other professional organizations. These organizations can help bridge the gap between legislatures and administrators and make sure both sides, if they don’t see exactly eye to eye, at least listen to one another.
Next week we will return with our final installment from the 2019 Survey of Local Election Officials. We will share the experience of LEOs in working directly with voters and their perspectives on supporting voters throughout the election process.