Originally posted by electiononline
In this final installment on the 2019 DF/RC LEO Survey, we explore the relationship between voters and local election officials (LEOs).
There is a lot of talk this year about the key role LEOs play in ensuring a safe, secure, and accessible election, and for good reason. The challenges faced by LEOs in recruiting poll workers, providing socially distant voting options, and countering misinformation about voting by mail are daunting.
We want to take a step back and talk about local election administration as administration. Over the past quarter century, there’s been a shift in how public administrators at all levels of government connect with citizens and voters. This shift has resulted in agencies or public offices working to empower the public, and not simply serve them.
Our survey finds that this shift has also occurred in election administration. LEOs see their work as an opportunity to engage and support voters. This voter-centric approach means LEOs work to identify what voters need, innovate to meet these needs, and communicate these challenges into the policy processes to improve elections.
It was this perspective that first led our team to refer to LEOs as the “Stewards of Democracy,” important administrators that protect and enable key elements of US democracy.
This voter-centric perspective acknowledges the complexity and skills required to successfully administer elections. As the final report of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration notes:
The last decade’s heightened demand for more professional administration of elections and modernization of the process demonstrates that there is an increasing need for technology acumen, public relations skills, and data savvy.
As we will discuss at the end of this post, LEOs rate the voter and election official experience as easier today when compared to when they first started working. The technical steps of election administration have become easier, but that’s not the whole story.
Administering elections is more than a technical skill set – it is a role that engages and connects with the voting public.
Examining voter-centric attitudes among American LEOs
The DF/RC LEO Survey is the first to try to measure voter-centric orientations among local election officials. There are several behaviors that LEOs exhibit, as well as the processes they establish, that indicate a voter-centric orientation. These include:
- Creating and distributing voter education and outreach materials;
- Fostering partnerships between LEOs and local organizations to help address specific voter needs;
- Ensuring that election processes at the local level are secure so that every ballot can be counted to the fullest extent of the law; and
- Establishing and maintaining a voter-centric organizational culture in local election offices and departments.
We didn’t ask about each of these, but instead provided a set of statements that reflect some aspects of voter-centric election administration.
LEOs overwhelmingly value voter education and outreach and consider it part of their job to work on voter education and satisfaction. 74% of LEOs agreed with the statement that they enjoy educating citizens, and 62% believe that their responsibilities include improving voter education and satisfaction.
Almost sixty percent disagreed that their primary task was to just conduct the election, and not worry about voter satisfaction. As one LEO shared with us:
Constant communication with our voters is key to ensuring a successful election.
LEOs also recognize the benefit of an informed voting public: it can reduce complexity and potential public concerns. 57% of LEOs cited lack of citizen knowledge as a source of problems when it comes to voting. Many LEOs told us that election officials need to counter the fears or risks that are being discussed by the press and in social media.
In this way, education is not simply sharing how to vote, but rather actively engaging election administration narratives that can help to avoid problems during the election period.
In 2019, we added a question about whether LEOs should be concerned with turnout—a sensitive issue among many administrators since the main drivers of turnout (demographics and candidates) are out of their control.
We’re encouraged to report that LEOs recognize the value of higher turnout in fostering a healthy elections system. 49% agreed that it is part of their job to encourage turnout, and only 22% disagreed.
We also asked if LEOs should play a role in in reducing demographic disparities in voter turnout. On this LEOs were more divided, and the largest segment neither agreed nor disagreed (47%) but 29% agreed that it should be part of their work.
It is not surprising to see some divided opinions here. Public administrators commonly seek to be value neutral in their work, and these questions stepped close to potentially appearing as political or value-based.
Finally, as we found before, one of the main impediments to more voter education and engagement is that local offices face resource constraints.
An improving election experience over time — for voters and LEOs
LEOs generally report that election administration conditions have improved over time. On the five measures of voter access that we asked about, over 80% of LEOs responded that it had become easier for voters to participate along these lines since they began their job, which increases slightly with jurisdiction size.
On five prompts about LEO job tasks, over 60% of respondents agreed that these tasks had gotten easier since their first election. These results are similar to our 2018 survey, and indicate that election administration is generally improving or voters – and for the LEOs themselves. This may be tied into what they have control over: many of the tasks that LEOs perform directly make it easier for voters to participate in elections, but the changes that make it harder for LEOs to do their jobs often come from outside, such as state policy changes or citizen-led ballot initiatives.
Democracy takes work and LEOs are up for the challenge
These final items from our survey illustrate a key strength in US elections: the people called to serve and administer at the local level. LEOs show a commitment to not just running safe, fair, and efficient elections – they want to help voters claim their role in our elections.
They are also in a unique position where they must balance the work of elections with the task of engaging voters, often without additional resources. This work is something they both enjoy and are passionate about. It seems only fitting to close this series not with our words, but with a comment from a LEO that captures this sentiment:
I do my part to educate my residents and voters. I wish others would see that is what is needed […] I love my work and I love our free democracy!