Resources

The 2024 Local Election Official (LEO) Survey provides insight into the challenges and successes facing election administrators, including job satisfaction, experience with threats and harassment, and hiring and funding challenges. It also highlights LEOs’ perspectives on the performance of U.S. elections and their role in voter education and engagement.

Using an original dataset spanning all 50 states, authors also analyze the experience levels of current and incoming election officials and variations in turnover by several jurisdiction and office characteristics. The report also provides recommendations for policymakers to help mitigate turnover and promote workforce resiliency.

This paper examines the demographic characteristics and professional profiles of election officials in the U.S. They find that, even amidst disruptions in politics and elections, the "typical" local election official remains the same: mid-50s white females earning just under $50,000 a year. They then explore potential reasons for the heavily female makeup of the elections workforce.

This report uses data from the Bridging Divides Initiative (BDI) Threats and harassment Database (THD) to identify and discuss trends in threats and harassment against election officials between 2022 and 2024. BDI found that election officials faced an elevated risk of threats around election time during the period studied. BDI publishes updated analyses of the THD every month.

This Brennan Center survey reports on local election officials’ experiences with security, threats, funding, staffing, and preparation for the 2024 election environment. It is relevant because trusted, timely, and nonpartisan communication is one of the main tools election officials and civic groups use to counter distrust. For this dataset, it helps capture the most recent post-2020 trust environment and the continuing effects of election denial, security concerns, and polarization.

In this paper, Michael Greenberger examines the effect of poll worker recruitment policies, local demographics and political characteristics on poll worker recruitment, finding that less restrictive poll worker requirements can ease recruitment efforts. However, underlying demographics and income levels also help identify where recruitment may be difficult. He claims that the U.S. Election Assistance Commissions report on poll worker recruitment is incomplete, particularly for states formerly covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

Administering Elections provides a digest of contemporary American election administration using a systems perspective. The authors provide insight into the interconnected nature of all components of elections administration, and sheds light on the potential consequences of reforms that fail to account for this.

This report aims to support election officials in strengthening poll worker programs and recruitment. It outlines state legal frameworks for serving as a poll worker, including voter status and residency, age requirements, and compensation. It also highlights state, local, and political party strategies for improving poll worker recruitment, such as community partnerships, targeted outreach, and improved training programs.

The 2023 Local Election Official Survey provides insight into the challenges and successes facing election administrators, including the impacts of misinformation on job satisfaction, high turnover and rising workloads. It also analyzes demographic characteristics of election officials and the voter education methods they use.

The 2023 State-by-State Compendium cites statutory requirements for serving as a poll worker in each state, including voter registration qualifications, age, residency, political affiliation, term requirements, compensation, and training, among others.

In this paper, authors examine whether the main predictors of election administration opinions, particularly partisanship and jurisdiction size, are similar for LEOs and the public. They analyze results from two national surveys with identically worded questions administered to both groups, finding that these groups diverge on the topic of election integrity but share similar opinions on election security and reform proposals.

The 2023 Local Election Official Survey explored the views and opinions of 852 local election officials, finding that a high number of officials were administering their first-election in 2020. Election officials also expressed facing threats and harassment, growing concerns of political interference in elections, and the need for more resources to meet administration and security needs.