Rebuilding Public Trust in Elections
Removing the Partisan Stain from State and Local Election Administration
The final commentary in Civic Way’s series on state and local elections. In this essay, we offer ways to make election administration more impartial and efficient. In our last essay, we discussed audits and other post-election processes. The author, Bob Melville, is the founder of Civic Way, a nonprofit dedicated to good government, and a management consultant with over 45 years of experience improving government agencies.
Highlights:
Even the best ideas for improving election processes will disappoint unless we dramatically restructure our state and local election administration offices
Election administration, with over 10,000 jurisdictions, is highly decentralized and fragmented
Most state and local election agencies are heavily influenced—if not controlled—by partisan interests
In the absence of impartial, professional and efficient election administration, restoring broad public faith in American elections will likely remain a pipe dream
The Limits of Election Reform
There is no dearth of good ideas for improving election processes and strengthening security controls. Election experts, think tanks and civic groups continually offer great ideas. Most of these ideas deserve serious consideration and many should be funded and implemented.
Unfortunately, such ideas will yield disappointing returns without more independent, professional and efficient election administration. A mere reorganization of the 10,000 + entities that manage our federal, state and local elections won’t do. What we need is an entirely new model for the entities we entrust with our elections.
Why? Without consolidation, election administration will remain inefficient. Without independent administration, our elections will continue to suffer partisan interference. Without more professionalism, election reforms—no matter how well funded—will not inspire widespread public confidence in elections.
The Election Administration Landscape
Election administration has become increasingly complex, morphing from what long had been a largely clerical function. Dynamic laws and policies. New voting technology. Rising cybersecurity threats. More specialized skill needs. Escalating state training mandates.
US election administration—maintaining voter registration files, operating polling places, counting ballots and running elections—is very decentralized. It is estimated that there are over 10,000 entities involved with administering elections. Most entities are local, but there are national and state entities as well.
At the national level, we have the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Since 1975, the FEC has enforced federal campaign finance laws and regulated federal campaigns. The US Congress has periodically established national election administration standards through the enactment of federal legislation such as the 1993 National Voter Registration Act and 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA).
States oversee state and local elections (in accord with federal election laws) and enforce state election laws. However, their administrative role varies from state to state. Some states directly supervise certain elections (e.g., presidential primary elections). Several offer local officials aid like training and system testing. Some states help fund certain needs (e.g., voting equipment). A few states directly hire, train and pay local election officials or provide resource materials.
HAVA required states to build a “single, uniform, centralized, computerized statewide voter registration list,” but its implementation has not been uniform. Over two-thirds of the states (and DC) have state systems. About six states have decentralized, local systems. Another nine states use hybrid systems. One state—North Dakota—lacks a statewide voter registration list. Uniformity remains a hope.
Among local governments, counties and municipalities are most involved with election administration. Counties administer most elections, but municipalities administer elections in some New England and Midwestern states. Local election agencies perform many functions. Design ballots. Certify candidates. Distribute mail ballots. Buy equipment. Supply precincts. Train volunteers. Monitor voting. Localities pay most election costs.
The Futility of Fragmentation
Election administration is highly decentralized in the US. There are over 10,000 election administration jurisdictions, including states, counties and municipalities. They range in size from small towns with a few hundred registered voters to Los Angeles County with over 4.7 million voters.
Fragmenting or distributing election administration across 50 states and over 10,000 separate agencies is a recipe for inconsistency. Even with strong national standards, we cannot ensure that every state will implement those standards in a consistent manner. Even with strong state standards, we cannot ensure that all local jurisdictions will maintain the same level of electoral security.
Fragmentation has many ill effects. Staffing quality is inconsistent across so many jurisdictions. Budgets and resources vary widely. The capacity for buying, maintaining and managing voting technology varies even more. Coordinating cybersecurity programs across so many jurisdictions is extremely complicated.
The Stain of Partisanship
Partisanship is an even more serious flaw than fragmentation. Our elections should be partisan, but their administration should not. Allowing the political parties to control election administration—a weakness in most jurisdictions—opens the door to partisan interference, patronage and other abuses.
To instill public confidence, election officials must be impartial, independent from partisan influence. Unfortunately, many election agencies are run by partisan officials or bipartisan boards of election. This is true at both the state and local levels and it undercuts the credibility of election administration whether one party is in charge or both parties run the show.
Most states designate a partisan official as the chief election officer. In 24 states, the chief election officer is the elected secretary of state. In ten states, including large states like Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas, the chief election officer is another partisan official (e.g., lieutenant governor or legislative or gubernatorial appointee). The other 16 states have a commission, most typically with bipartisan gubernatorially-appointed membership.
Localities, like states, administer elections with significant partisan involvement. Many, especially in large urban areas, have bipartisan election boards. Some jurisdictions assign election administration to one individual (usually elected). Smaller entities often assign election administration to an official with other duties (e.g., county clerk, registrar or assessor). In most cases, partisans are well represented.
The Curse of Inferior Management
The campaign to discredit the 2020 presidential elections often entailed hyperbolic criticism of large urban election administration entities. The common refrain? That large urban election boards in places like New York City, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Phoenix are irrevocably inept (or corrupt).
It is no coincidence that the targets were localities generating huge Democratic majorities (and not rural areas producing large GOP majorities). When such criticism is nakedly self-serving, it can be easy to dismiss. However, we should not assume that our election boards are uniformly well-managed.
Election boards that are politically administered (partisan or bipartisan) are far more vulnerable to partisan influence and inferior management practices than independent, professionally-managed election boards. One-party control is bad enough, but two-party control can be equally inefficient. Patronage, indifference, incompetence, even corruption.
New York City is one illustration. Its most recent municipal primary generated national headlines about delays and errors in reporting Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) results (e.g., counting nearly 150,000 test ballots), suggesting that the mayoral race was much closer than it was. Some critics blamed RCV, but the far more likely suspect was the city’s bipartisan, patronage-steeped Board of Elections.
Since at least 1971, when the New York Times criticized the election board as “a semi‐functioning anachronism,” the NYC Board of Elections has had a reputation for incompetence and waste. Rampant nepotism and patronage. Slothful bureaucracy. Mind-blowing errors (e.g., illegal voter purges, illegible ballot fonts and errant mail ballots). Absentee accountability.
Rural election boards do not have unblemished administrative records. For instance, in some small rural counties, long-time voters have been barred from voting or even casting a provisional ballot for inexplicable reasons. In other small counties, polling places have been reduced, discouraging many citizens from voting. Funding is often inadequate and staffing and other resources strained.
The Lost World of Election Administration
Our election workers are the stewards of democracy. Committed to electoral integrity, most work hard to keep our elections secure and reliable. Their pay is modest (if not low), but they face unwarranted and mounting abuse from politicians and voters.
Lawmakers in several states have found it politically advantageous to bully local election officials. This year, legislatures in at least 14 states enacted bills targeting state and local election officials. Some statutes empower legislative bodies to carry out partisan investigations, replace election officials and take over local election boards based on mere allegations. Other bills make local election officials liable for technical errors (e.g., vote tallying error) or policy missteps (e.g., distributing absentee ballot applications).
Fueled by misinformation, some zealous private citizens have participated in misguided efforts to intimidate local election officials. Not just Democratic election officials like Arizona’s Secretary of State, but Republicans like Kentucky’s Secretary of State. Ugly verbal abuse. Menacing phone calls. Threats of bodily harm.
And this campaign is working. According to a joint Brennan/Bipartisan Policy Center report, a third of election officials feel unsafe. Many are retiring or resigning. Clearly, these tactics pose a grave threat to democracy. An exodus of election workers could cripple future elections—fewer polling places, longer wait times, lower turnout and lost confidence in elections. Perhaps that is their goal.
Administering Elections Impartially, Professionally and Efficiently
Some politicians disingenuously claim they’re trying to ensure electoral integrity, but their proposed solutions offer more partisanship than relief. The far more responsible approach, as illustrated by the strategies below, would be to remove the stain of partisanship altogether.
1. Make election administration independent. In every state, establish an independent election authority to enforce election laws. Transfer all administration functions from partisan officials like the secretary of state to the new authority. Broaden and protect the authority’s administrative powers from partisan interference, especially during emergencies.
2. Create regional election centers. Within each state, establish multi-county or multi-jurisdiction election agencies to oversee local elections (under the supervision of the new state authorities). Merge and close existing local election entities. Transfer all local election administration functions to the new independent regional election centers.
3. Strengthen election administration standards. Establish a national commission with representatives of key election associations (e.g., US Election Assistance Commission and National Association of Election Officials). Develop model national standards for administering elections. Develop a robust national professional certification program for election administrators. Promote the adoption of state standards. Establish a central clearing house for best practices, vendor testing and other electoral guidelines.
4. Protect election officials. Establish national and state mechanisms for documenting and reporting incidents of election worker intimidation. Fund ample security and provide harassment training for state and local election officials. Enact laws specifying severe sanctions for interfering with election administration or threatening election officials. Empower district attorneys and other law enforcement officials to enforce laws protecting election officials from intimidation.
Throughout our history, crisis has been the crucible for our best moments as a nation. The assault on elections and democracy is another such crisis. Hopefully, we will seize the opportunity to reform the way we administer elections and, in so doing, protect democracy from those who would subvert it to their partisan interests.