By Shelley Kimball, PhD, Johns Hopkins University
Election officials in local offices across the country have experienced a surge in public records requests in recent years, and some of them are perceived as vexatious, unduly burdensome, frustrating, voluminous, overwhelming, or harassing. While requests for information are fundamental to government transparency, unduly burdensome requests are straining the limited resources of election officials.
Results from the 2024 Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC) Local Election Official (LEO) Survey show that while election officials recognize the increasing burden of excessive requests, their preferred solutions emphasize transparency, openness, and the use of technology rather than punitive measures.
In the following paragraphs, we outline the issue, examine LEOs’ perspectives, and recommend actionable solutions that balance public access to information with the operational needs of local election offices.
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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.”
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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
Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC) Local Election Official (LEO) Survey captures the
challenges and successes facing election officials each year. In 2024, we heard from over 650 LEOs
nationwide.
LEOs continue to manage the new obstacles that come with each election. They have endured
challenges from political forces, local finance and budget changes, and shifting state election
policy. As stewards of democracy, they continue to serve voters with dedication. However, we are
concerned that ongoing stressors will result in accelerated departures from election offices. 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.
The 2024 election administration experience was relatively uneventful compared to past elections.
While the election results were rapid and clear, we share a note of caution.
- Since 2020, key measures indicate that job stress remains high.
- Job satisfaction has fallen and is not recovering.
- The number of reported retirement plans remains high, and LEOs continue to share experiencing threats and harassment.
- Full-time hiring has become more difficult.
- Localities report highly diverse revenue sources for funding operations.
The report closes with a review of LEOs’ perspectives on the performance of US elections and their role in voter education and engagement.
Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC) Research Director Paul Manson, PhD, presented at the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) winter conference in Washington, DC on February 3, 2025.
Paul’s presentation featured a preview of the forthcoming 2024 EVIC Local Election Official (LEO) Survey report, focused on LEO job satisfaction, hiring challenges, and the diverse funding models used across local election jurisdictions.
I am thankful for the opportunity to present our 2024 survey results to election leaders from across the United States at the NASED conference. I hope these results can support them in their critical work at the state and local levels.
In a previous post we dove into the initial election results from Portland’s Ranked Choice Voting elections. Each night the Multnomah County Elections office is updating their RCV election results page dand we will update visualizations here.
Things to Keep an Eye Out For
We don’t know how the remaining 130,000 ballots (as of 7:00am on November 7) will change results. They are being processed in the order they were received, and so we are unsure if there is a geographic or any other pattern. But here are the things we are looking out for:
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Updates on results will be posted here nightly!
Tonight Portland voters will learn a lot about the new voting system adopted as a part of charter reform. The Mayor, Auditor, and Council will all be selected with ranked preferences form voters. The Council is the unique story here as three winners will be selected from these rankings in each of the four new districts.
We are sharing some initial analyses here to explore the patterns from these elections. But first an important note: These are just preliminary results. The Multnomah County Elections Division is releasing full tabulations each evening. For the next few days ballots will continue to be returned to the County, resulting in updates that may change these results. This is a disclaimer one should remember when also reviewing national returns in general! With that note, lets see what the voters have shared so far.
Later tonight, the Multnomah County Elections Division will release new results for the City of Portland races here in Oregon. I will post our first visualizations here on our Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC) website blog.
We noticed last night that the percentage of ballots processed in time for the first preliminary results were lower than we felt comfortable presenting. Initially looking at those data though, we found some promising patterns in terms of how voters were managing choices. District 1 results in particular seem to be made up of a lot of ballots that have not been processed yet. Preliminary results last night showed about 50% less total ballots in District 1 compared to the other districts. That gave us reason to pause on data analysis.
Below are the results for the Mayor’s race – which has more votes as a citywide race. Here we see the outsider Keith Wilson besting three sitting city commissioners.
We will publish an update tonight around 6:30pm Pacific, so be on the lookout! In the interim, if you did not yet read our primer on the topic, take a look prior to this evening.
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In case you were not online at 5am Pacific on Election Day (but if you are reading this post, you are an “Election Geek” and thus, you were likely already awake and working!), Paul Gronke, PhD, Director of the Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC) and Professor of Political Science at Reed College was live on C-SPAN for an hour discussing “all things elections” with C-SPAN Washington Journal Host Mimi Geerges.
