With another election cycle underway, officials aim to quell fears of voter fraud, rigging

WASHINGTON − Ahead of another election cycle that is already shaping up to be contentious, federal and state election officials are in the midst of campaigns of their own to convince wary voters about the integrity of casting their ballots.

They are recruiting poll workers, certifying voting machines and hosting lessons on how election systems work in community centers, classrooms and libraries.

The steps are needed, experts say, to restore voters' confidence in a system that, despite some flaws and outspoken election deniers, was mostly trustworthy and secure in the first place.

Election-explaining efforts come as former President Donald Trump and others continue to falsely claim the 2020 presidential election was stolen. But election officials said many voters simply aren’t familiar with the election process.

“We've been looking at ways to demystify that,” said Ben Hovland, vice chair of the bipartisan U.S. ElectionAssistanceCommission, whose mission is to help local officials run elections. “That's a real challenge.''

Election officials across the country are competing with the outsized influence of Trump, who faces felony charges for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election, and his allies, as they continue to undermine faith in the American electoral process, experts said.

That fearmongering, in part, gave rise to calls for major overhauls of election systems in some states led mostly by Republican lawmakers. Some, particularly voters of color, were already skeptical of a system with a history of discrimination that hasn't always been open to them. New laws to restrict access has fueled that mistrust, experts said.

"Our election process is one of these actions that Americans have taken for granted, even myself," said Zach Mohr, a professor at the University of Kansas who researches the costs of administering elections. "Now we have these loud voices who start criticizing our election process without proof and that scares people. What this simply says about America is that some Americans still don’t get how this all works."

Much of the work of assuring voters will fall to local elections officials, experts said. Americans have more trust in their local election systems, which they’re more familiar with, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

"People know their local election officials. They know when they go to city or town hall that they trust the people that work there,'' said Rob Rock, Rhode Island's deputy secretary of state. "It's really important to make sure that people understand the process.''

Always going to be election naysayers

In Exeter, Rhode Island, about 30 people gathered at the public library on a Saturday this month for a community meeting with state election officials. They asked about mail ballots, voter registration and other concerns. There are plans for similar sessions across the state.

“We have to make sure that we're out in front and answering those questions,’’ said Rock, who is also president of the National Association of State Election Directors. “I have no doubt that the most recent elections are the most secure elections we've ever run because people have asked questions and because they've been so scrutinized.’’

The Pew survey found the method of casting ballots affected voter confidence. In a 2020 survey, 49% of people polled were very confident about votes cast in person and 41% were somewhat confident. But when it came to absentee or mail-in ballots, just 20% were very confident and 38% were somewhat confident.

The fate of candidates supported by people surveyed also played a role: Pew found that Trump supporters were more confident in the process when he won his bid for president in 2016 than when he lost in 2020.

To address skeptics, federal election officials said they’re trying to provide more information to the public about the security of voting machines.

‘’We take every opportunity when we're out in the country to explain the process and to underscore that we believe the machines are safe and secure,’’ Christy McCormick, chairwoman of the EAC, said during a media briefing last month. “There's always going to be people who are going to be naysayers.’’

McCormick said the agency hasn’t seen anything that has raised concerns about the integrity of voting machines. The EAC has a voluntary certification program in which, among other things, voting machines and systems are tested by accredited independent labs.

That's crucial for establishing voter trust, said Mohr, who is co-writing the forthcoming book, "A Republic if You Can Afford It: How Much Does it Cost to Administer an Election?," which looks at the cost of conducting elections in roughly 8,000 local election jurisdictions across the country. 

"The voters don’t understand those nuances of the election machine certification and how different political parties have to be present and represented when the vote counting occurs," Mohr said. "Voters just don't understand all of that when they hear screams, especially from prominent politicians, about voter fraud."

More than 40 states have laws requiring voting systems to have EAC certification or some component of the certification program for voting systems used in their jurisdiction, McCormick said.

“With hundreds of millions of votes cast, you can imagine that there are many different voting systems and types of equipment used across the country from ballot marking devices to tabulators,’’ she said. “It's critical that a thorough process is in place to test each manufacturer's voting system and machines.”

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Tailoring election systems

With thousands of election systems across the country, there is no one way to reach voters, experts said. Elections are run by local officials. The EAC provides toolkits that jurisdictions large and small can customize to help with work such as recruiting poll workers.

Federal officials said the goal is to help local officials, who are often strapped for funds, tailor their recruitment drives and voter education programs.

If voters are concerned about the security of machines and the process they can become poll workers, said Thomas Hicks, an EAC commissioner.

“That's another way that the public can become involved in the process itself as opposed to just listening to candidates or lawmakers,’’ he said. “They can see the process firsthand.’’

Municipalities will need the help: Many local election administrators and clerks either quit or retired because of harassment after the 2020 elections, Mohr, the University of Kansas professor said.

"It's really troubling on that level to see it occur," said Mohr, adding that those departing election officials take with them a lot of institutional knowledge.

Mohr said his research shows there are "extreme differences" in election spending throughout the country. "What we are finding is the [voters in] states and municipalities that spend more tend to have more confidence in their elections process," Mohr said.

In Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, a Democrat, said election officials are pushing to raise the pay for poll workers, which he said is low and hasn’t increased in years.

“Election Day is a long day,’’ Davis said. “We need to make sure that we're appropriately paying the people who are stepping up to do this civic service and this duty.”

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Fighting election disinformation

Federal election officials acknowledge the challenges of assuring voters that election systems are trustworthy especially with misinformation campaigns shared through social media and phone calls.

Some Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been doing a good job of trying to debunk disinformation, but not enough people have been held accounted for spreading disinformation, said David Becker, executive director of The Center for Election Innovation & Research.

Becker said it's important to hold to account "people who are doing the work of our adversaries overseas by telling the American people that they cannot trust their own elections and the public servants of both parties who are running them."

Rock said the task of assuring voters the nation's election systems work has been harder in recent years, but the intense scrutiny has raised awareness.

"It's important for people to ask questions,'' he said. "But it's even more important for us to be able to answer those questions and make people feel comfortable about their voting process.”