EVIC’s new report highlights the challenges and successes facing America’s election officials
(EVIC PRESS RELEASE) Portland, OR— February 6, 2025 — Today, the Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC) announced immediate availability of “Today’s Election Administration Landscape: Findings from the 2024 EVIC Local Election Official Survey” on the 2024 EVIC LEO Survey section of organization’s website at evic.reed.edu.
Local Election Officials (LEOs) are “stewards of democracy,” positioned at the frontline of elections in the United States. They ensure fair, free, accessible, and secure elections. The annual EVIC Local Election Official (LEO) Survey captures the
challenges and successes facing election officials each year. In 2024, EVIC heard from over 650 LEOs nationwide.
“LEOs continue to manage the new obstacles that come with each election,” said report co-author Paul Manson, PhD, EVIC Research Director and Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Public Service at Portland State University. “They have endured challenges from political forces, local finance and budget changes, and shifting state election policy – and as stewards of democracy, they continue to serve voters with dedication.”
The 2024 election administration experience was relatively uneventful compared to past elections. While the election results were rapid and clear, the authors share a note of caution.
“However, we are concerned that ongoing stressors will result in accelerated departures from election offices,” said report co-author Paul Gronke, PhD, EVIC Director and Political Science Professor at Reed College. “Hiring difficulties also suggest that these pressures are not limited to the chief local election official and create challenges at all levels of election offices.”
EVIC’s 2024 report begins with the challenges LEOs face themselves, including job satisfaction and experience with threats and harassment. The next section describes the policy and organizational challenges offices confront, including hiring staff and funding operations. Finally, the report concludes with LEOs’ perspectives on the performance of US elections and their role in voter education and engagement.
The 2024 EVIC report’s key findings show that LEO job satisfaction has stabilized at 77% after declining from 91% in 2022. Job satisfaction is highest among those serving the largest jurisdictions. Increasing workloads, ongoing threats and harassment, and shifting policy requirements are continuing concerns.
Subset of Key Findings: LEO Job Satisfaction
EVIC’s key job satisfaction findings from the 2024 LEO Survey include the following:
- Overall, 77% of local election officials are satisfied with their jobs.
- Overwhelmingly, LEOs share a sense of empowerment and confidence in their work.
- Job satisfaction has dropped 20 percentage points since the 2020 election and has not shown much sign of recovery.
- Key measures of aspects of job satisfaction show more significant declines.
- Following the 2020 election, the percentage of LEOs who would recommend that a child pursue election work dropped in half, from 40% to 20%.
- “Respect from Other County Officials” shows a positive return to 2020 levels.
About the 2024 EVIC Local Election Official Survey
EVIC’s marquee project is the annual Local Election Official (LEO) Survey that the research team has been undertaking since 2018 with the 2024 survey being the sixth in the series. The 2024 EVIC Local Election Official Survey was administered by EVIC at the Center for Public Service, Mark O. Hatfield School of Government, Portland State University.
The survey was fielded from August – October 2024. EVIC allowed respondents to complete the survey online or by returning a print survey. This multiple-method approach increases the survey response rate and increases the generalizability of the results. The total number of responses for the 2024 LEO Survey is 659 out of 3105 sampled, resulting in a response rate of 21.2%.
The 2024 EVIC LEO Survey project was led by EVIC Director Paul Gronke, PhD, Reed College Political Science Professor, and Research Director Paul Manson, PhD, Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Public Service at Portland State University. The 2024 EVIC LEO Survey was funded by Democracy Fund and the Election Trust Initiative.
For more information on the 2024 EVIC LEO Survey including crosstabs, codebook, instrument and infographics, please visit evic.reed.edu/leo_survey_project.
About the Elections & Voting Information Center
The Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC) is a Portland, Oregon-based non-partisan academic research center that searches for common sense solutions to identified problems in election administration backed by solid empirical evidence. EVIC is led by Founder and Director Paul Gronke, PhD, (Reed College) and Research Director Paul Manson, PhD, (Portland State University). For more information on EVIC, please visit evic.reed.edu.
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Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC) |Portland, Oregon
Media Contact: Michelle Shafer | shaferm@reed.edu | michelle@magentasage.com
