What’s normal and what isn’t on Election Day and beyond

With the U.S. midterm elections fast approaching and the balance of power in Congress at stake, journalists are playing a critical role in ensuring that voters have basic information about how to vote, as well as which issues and candidates are on the ballot.

The Journalist’s Resource recently convened an hourlong webinar where we answered your questions about what’s top of mind for voters and election officials this fall.

I moderated the discussion, which featured:

• Jen Fifield, a reporter at ProPublica who covers election issues, voting rights and threats to democracy.
• Thessalia Merivaki, the Thomas S. Foley Distinguished Professor of Government and Director of Thomas S. Foley Institute of Public Service and Public Policy at Washington State University.
• Tammy Patrick, chief programs officer at the Election Center, which provides technical resources and support for election administrators around the country.

There are a few things journalists can add to their coverage to help audiences better understand the U.S. electoral system. First, remind audiences that elections in the U.S. are markedly, and uniquely decentralized. They are, by and large, run by local officials.

“Most countries don’t do it this way,” Patrick said during the webinar. “They have a centralized system — it’s all run at the federal level. That is not the way we’ve been doing it for 250 years.”

Next, explain that it is normal for election administrators to take days, or longer, to count votes and publish results. There are no long counts or delayed counts, Patrick said — it simply takes time to count votes.

She recalled working for the Maricopa County Elections Department in Arizona and calling voters who didn’t sign their ballots or whose signatures didn’t match registration records.

“I never once had a voter say, ‘I didn’t vote, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Instead, they said, ‘My arm was in a cast,’ or, ‘I suffered a stroke — I can’t believe you’re calling me,” she said.

Finally, get to know — and report on — election administrators and poll watchers well before Election Day.

“Just get completely sourced up and understand who is running the poll watching for the local parties or the state parties,” Fifield said. “Who are the political party observers that will be watching ballots tabulated on election night?”

To get a sense for how other reporters are covering the nuts and bolts of election administration, sign up for Election Line, a repository of non-partisan local election coverage curated by the Election Center.

Watch the full webinar below and keep reading for takeaways from our discussion.

Cover this dynamic: Federal intervention in locally run elections

Ask election officials what they’re concerned about prior to the midterms.

For many officials, it could be the prospect of the federal government interfering with locally run elections.

“For Election Center members, their number one concern — when I ask them at our events of what’s keeping them up at night — their number one concern is federal intervention in [the] election cycle,” Patrick said. “I’ve been doing this more than 20 years, and that’s a new thing in the last couple of years.”

In particular, reporters can track claims from federal officials about non-citizens voting, efforts to change mail-in voting rules, requests for voter information and ballot seizures.

“That’s one thing that prior to Election Day I think every local reporter should try to get their feet wet on, is just understanding how the federal government has been in their community — if they have — on voting,” Fifield said.

Records requests are another way to find out what’s going on, Fifield said.

Are there records of communications showing the federal government has reached out to your local election officials? Or have election officials reached out to state or federal officials for any reason? How are election officials planning for potential federal interference?

Link underserved voters to under-resourced administrators

Underserved voters are those who face especially high barriers to voting. Many times this is because they lack resources to vote on Election Day, Merivaki said. Underserved voters are also more likely than consistent voters to live in areas with fewer resources and worse infrastructure, she added.

Every group of underserved voters will have distinct reasons for not being able to vote, even if they want to. Reporters can explore those reasons, and how election officials can reach underserved voters. One big reason it can be difficult to reach them is because election administrators often operate with limited budgets.

“We want to ensure voters are informed about how to participate,” Merivaki said. “We also want to ensure that voters know who to trust for information about elections and voting. We want to ensure that voters know what their rights are.”

Warn audiences that AI can accelerate bad information about elections

Election officials are often active on social media where they share valuable information about when, where and how to vote, but they usually don’t have many followers, Merivaki said.

Meanwhile, a large portion of the public is increasingly getting information, some of it inaccurate, from what Merivaki calls “AI-mediated systems,” such as chatbots or AI summaries via search engines.  

Those systems are “highly error-prone,” Merivaki said, which can amplify the problem of disinformation, “and it adds to confusion — it also adds to distrust — and it makes the work of those trusted sources of information harder to penetrate.”

By getting to know and reporting on the people running elections, journalists can act as conduits for trustworthy information, and reach larger swaths of the public than election officials can on their own.

Profile the village it takes to run elections

Elections are a community effort.

Patrick recommended that journalists profile the people who make voting happen.

These could be profiles of poll workers, election officials, members of law enforcement and volunteers.

“Elections are not one or two election officials, it’s the entire community that’s turning out to make this happen,” Patrick said. “So telling that story is a really, really important piece of it.”

Uncover the voter experience

At polling places, ask voters about their motivations for voting and what it was like.

Did they wait on a line or get in quickly? Were ballots confusing or easy to understand? Were there particular issues or candidates that brought them out to vote?

“Some people consider it a really patriotic process, which is always great to put in, to remind people about the power of voting,” Fifield said.

Approach people after they’ve voted, not before. If there is a line they may be anxious and want to get it over with — but after they vote, some people are excited and are open to talking to reporters, Fifield said.

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