New Research from USC Center for Inclusive Democracy and EVIC Collaboration on Ballot Tracking
We’re excited to share some new research from the Center for Inclusive Democracy (CID) at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy and our team here at the Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC).
In “Vote-by-Mail Ballot Tracking: A Multi-State Analysis of Voter Turnout and Rejection Rates”, our combined team found that voters in Georgia, Colorado and California who used a free vote-by-mail ballot tracking tool during the 2022 midterms reported higher confidence in the electoral process than non-tool users.
This study was led by CID with Sol Price School of Public Policy Assistant Research Professor Mindy Romero, PhD, a political sociologist and the founder and director of the CID, serving as the study’s Principal Investigator.
EVIC’s founder and director Paul Gronke, PhD, political scientist at Reed College, and Lisa A. Bryant, PhD, political scientist, department chair, and 2024-2026 Andrew Carnegie Fellow (Carnegie Corporation of New York) at California State University, Fresno focused on the instrument creation and surveying aspect of this project.
CID Research Associate Anna (Annie) Meier and EVIC Senior Program Advisor Michelle M. Shafer also contributed to this work.
Support for this project was provided by the Election Trust Initiative.
Read the University of Southern California press release about this report here, and read the report itself here.
The Impact of Public Records Requests on Local Election Officials: Findings from the 2023 EVIC LEO Survey
By Paul Gronke and Paul Manson
Kyle Yoder and April Tan of the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR) released a focus brief on the use and abuse of public records requests, how these requests have impacted local elections offices, and what legislative solutions have been shown to ease the burden placed on local election officials (LEOs).
The research team at the Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC) has been tracking public records requests in our 2023 EVIC LEO Survey, part of a broader investigation into workloads, staffing, and administrative burdens. The survey provides additional evidence about the dramatic increase in workload resulting from public records requests, particularly in medium-sized and larger jurisdictions where these requests seem to be concentrated.
We also collected nuanced information about how LEOs respond to these requests as part of a deep dive into elections staffing in the State of Oregon. This research, combined with our LEO Survey results, lead us to propose a friendly amendment to the first of the four legislative proposals made by Yoder and Tan.
Their first proposal is to require: Processing Election-Related Records Requests at the State Level
The stated rationale is “a law enacted in the State of Washington in 2023, all requests for records from the statewide voter registration database or for any standard reports generated by the database must be made to and fulfilled by the secretary of state.”
Our research in the State of Oregon highlights a few potential issues with this proposal — mainly it is too limiting. Not all election-related public records requests are for data or reports from the statewide voter registration system. County-specific election records and local election administrative choices are unlikely to be integrated into the statewide database. Second, there is substantial variation in how much administrative authority resides at the local level versus administrative authority at the state (see this overview from the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) for a quick overview).
It seems reasonable to suggest that requests for information from the statewide registration system be forwarded (or have to be submitted to) the state, but that we provide resources and capabilities for localities to respond to other requests.
Our amendment creates a wider umbrella that would ensure that all counties and local jurisdictions have some capacity to respond to these requests. This amendment (additions in bold) threads this needle:
Processing statewide voter registration system election records requests at the state level, standardizing how requests are processed by local jurisdictions, and providing funding to local jurisdictions to sufficiently respond to these requests.
We provide our survey results and rationale for this amendment below.
Survey Evidence on Changes in LEO Workload
Across the board, LEOs have reported to us that their workload has been increasing. Most dramatically, our 2023 survey shows how burdensome election work has become during the “peak” periods (which can extend as long as six weeks before and a week after Election Day).
The reasons for the workload increases are varied, with the largest impact on the smallest offices. These increases are proportionally higher because the typical LEO in a small office dedicates less than 10 hours/week to election work in non-peak times.
What about specific administrative tasks? We asked LEOs how much their workload has changed across different areas, “compared to four years ago”. We chose that time point specifically to encompass one midterm and one presidential cycle.
Three tasks stand out with the highest increase in reported workload over the past four years:
- Preparing for pre-Election Day voting
- Preparing for Election Day voting
- Public records requests
Our survey shows how these requests have become particularly burdensome for medium-sized and larger jurisdictions with the same pattern emerging for “citizen complaints” and “media requests.”
How Clerks in Oregon Deal with Public Records Requests
In late 2023, EVIC interviewed 34 of 36 Oregon clerks to identify more effective and efficient staffing of these offices. Our report, conducted in collaboration with the Oregon Secretary of State’s Division of Elections, highlighted how even in a relatively stable election system like Oregon, which has been fully vote-by-mail since 2000, the workload demands and staffing models have fallen out of sync with the current reality of the job.
And one of these realities is a big increase in public records requests.
Many topics came up in our conversations, but public records were notably high on the agenda of every clerk we spoke to. In fact, the term “public records” appears 228 times across the 33 interviews. What did clerks in Oregon tell us about these requests?
The frequency and quantity of requests has increased enormously. These two quotes are typical:
“We get inundated with public records requests …”
“… you know, go back five years, we would probably get two or three public records requests in an election cycle, now we get two or three a day …”
Also, in the past, requests generally came from the press or groups versed in laws and procedures of that state or locality. Now we are seeing a nationalization of these requests moving through informal social media channels, and citizen activists making requests that can be at times nonsensical. Clerks shared with us, for example, requests for information about polling place locations and poll workers, both of which don’t exist in our state.
All of our respondents said they worked hard to respond to requests, but how they did this varied tremendously. Some told us they developed a request form, charged for staff time, and had access to an attorney. A few told us they’d even added new positions to handle public records:
“… the county has established an office to take that load off of the clerk, because you know, you’re not the only ones who see public records requests …”
“… we’ve built into one of these new positions … will be doing public records requests. In the past, that’s not something we’ve ever considered.”
These clerks are well-positioned to handle the requests, even if the process is being misused.
Other clerks told a very different story, however. Out of a desire to be responsive and transparent, some clerks told us they answered most requests, on the phone or using email. It was not clear that they were documenting the content, frequency, or cost of these requests. A few clerks shared with us that their county had only limited access to an attorney who was not a county employee.
The variation in capacity and in how identical requests were treated across counties raised concerns for us. In our June 2023 report, we recommended:
- Standardize or potentially consolidate public records request processes for various types of emerging public requests.
- Create a new statewide position in the Elections Division to support counties in addressing public records requests.
- Encourage the use of intake forms for public records requests.
- Provide guidance on “boilerplate” or “cookie cutter” requests.
This doesn’t sound so different from the CEIR recommendation, and it isn’t in spirit. Our amended proposal provides more flexibility, allows for county-level processing in some cases, and perhaps most importantly, recognizes that budgets and funding at the local level are critical for the near term.
We can’t keep expecting local election offices to do it all and not fund them adequately.
Nonetheless, these differences are only a very minor shade of grey. We commend CEIR and many others for highlighting the abuse of public records requests and proposing reasonable policy solutions. To the degree that states can help standardize procedures, smooth processing, and reduce the burden on local offices, we are in 100% support.
Findings from EVIC’s Elections & Voting Information Center’s 2023 Survey of Local Election Officials
By Paul Gronke, PhD | Paul Manson, PhD
As our Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC) readers know, the administration of elections in the United States is a decentralized system with a complex set of diverse institutional arrangements that vary across states and sub-state jurisdictions.
Nearly 8,000 officials spread across 50 states and the District of Columbia hold many titles. They are selected by many different methods and have varying degrees of autonomy from their states (and their counties in the instance of villages, cities, etc., who conduct elections in Michigan, Wisconsin, and New England states). And, of course, they operate in very different political, demographic, and geographical environments.
In the face of this diversity, there are common features, predictable challenges, and a shared professional commitment that connects officials from the smallest Midwestern or New England township to densely populated urban and sprawling metropolitan suburban areas.
Since 2018, EVIC at Reed College has created and continuously evolved its often quoted and highly anticipated annual Survey of Local Election Officials (LEOs). And today, after the dust begins to settle on Election Day 2023 and election officials throughout the country shift focus to the 2024 primaries and presidential election, our team is proud to share our 2023 LEO Survey results and report.
The 2023 LEO Survey was conducted during the off-year (although there is no true “off-year” for election officials) by EVIC in collaboration with SSRS, our skilled survey administration partner and designer of the infographics used in our 2023 report.
In response to feedback from the elections community, researchers, and others working in the democracy space, we learned that a major challenge faced by almost all offices is summed up by one term: resiliency. In this turbulent time of rapid change, competitive elections, and increased public scrutiny, how have these offices adapted and performed?
Key takeaways from the 2023 LEO Survey include:
- Job satisfaction remains high. LEOs say that “integrity”, “service”, and “community” come to mind when they think about what they like about their jobs. When asked what they don’t like about their jobs, “misinformation”, “politics”, and “stress” are at the top of their minds.
- Peak elections workload forces most officials to stretch to their limits, or go beyond them. On a percentage basis, the increased workload during “peak” election season is truly extraordinary – from 50% to 535% higher hours worked during elections as compared to the rest of the year. This is dependent on the size of the jurisdiction.
- Turnover is twice as high as found in prior LEO surveys. However, loss of institutional knowledge may be tempered by lateral movement. For example, the average LEO in the largest-sized (>100,000) jurisdictional category has been in their current position for only 5 years, but has 16 years of experience in elections. We need to know not just about when LEOs depart, but we need to know about who replaces a LEO when they depart.
- Staffing and hiring continue to be a challenge for many election offices. Barriers to hiring include job classifications that have fallen out of sync with the skill sets currently needed to administer elections as well as non-competitive pay. LEOs are divided as to whether the political environment is a barrier.
- Misinformation is a concern among most LEOs. LEOs in smaller jurisdictions rely primarily on face-to-face communication to counter misinformation, while LEOs in larger jurisdictions rely on a broad suite of communications channels that includes social media, websites, email, etc.
On the 2023 LEO Survey page, you will find our report on the high-level survey findings. And for those of you who may be academic researchers or other data geeks (and we mean that in a good way!), you will find the following 2023 resources available to download and comb through, including the 2023 web-based instrument, crosstabs, and codebooks, as well as the codebooks, crosstabs, and questionnaires from our 2018-2022 studies.
The EVIC LEO Surveys also collect metrics to monitor the environment in which these public servants serve, their attitudes toward their work, and the situations and circumstances in which they find themselves. Since the 2020 election, the EVIC team has examined LEO perception of threats and harassment inside and outside of their workplace and the effects of this situation over time.
The 2023 LEO Survey was generously supported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Election Data and Science Lab (MEDSL) with additional survey communications support from the Election Trust Initiative to enable us to produce such high-quality infographics.The inaugural LEO Survey of 2018 through the 2022 Survey was funded by our collaborative partner on those efforts – Democracy Fund – without whose support this idea would not have become a reality. In addition to our current and past survey funders and their respective team members (way too many to name), we’d like to recognize our external team at SSRS and our current internal EVIC team: Jay Lee (Reed ‘19), Michelle Shafer, Simon Ahn (Reed ‘24) and Abby Durant (Reed ‘24), for their extremely valuable contributions to the success of this effort.
And last – but most importantly – we thank election officials all over the country in almost every state, for taking the time to thoughtfully respond to our survey and help us in sharing results.
If you are an academic researcher who would like to work with our data, a leader of a national, regional, or state association of election officials interested in having a presentation on the 2023 LEO Survey at your next meeting, or a member of the media interested in writing about the 2023 Survey, please contact EVIC Senior Program Manager Michelle Shafer via email.
In case you missed our October 8, 2024 webinar “The Impact of EVIC’s Local Election Official Survey Program on Election Science Research and Election Administration” – or want to re-watch this fantastic discussion – the conversation between EVIC’s Founder and Director and Reed College Political Scientist Paul Gronke, PhD, and 2024-2026 Andrew Carnegie Fellows and Election Science researchers Lisa A. Bryant, PhD (California State University, Fresno), and Mara Suttmann-Lea, PhD, Connecticut College), is posted to our new EVIC YouTube channel at this link.
We encourage you to listen to this excellent discussion that took place on campus at Reed College on the morning of October 8th with webinar attendees from across the US and around the word listening live on Zoom. And please share it with your colleagues!
The Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC) is a non-partisan academic research center with our research leads co-located at Portland State University and Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Led by Founder and Director Paul Gronke, PhD, and Research Director Paul Manson, PhD, EVIC searches for common sense, non-partisan solutions to identified problems in election administration backed by solid empirical evidence.
EVIC’s marquee project is the annual Local Election Official (LEO) Survey which our research team has been undertaking since 2018. The 2024 EVIC LEO Survey – generously funded by Democracy Fund and the Election Trust Initiative – is currently underway and still fielding as of the date of this post. We encourage all LEOs who have received a survey (not every LEO receives a survey every year) to fill it out either online or via paper copy and return it to us. We will be analyzing results soon and beginning to share them in early December. Stay tuned!
If you have any questions on the LEO Survey, or anything EVIC-related, please reach out to me at shaferm@reed.edu. Thank you!