The Center for Election Confidence (CEC) submitted comments to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) in response to its notice for the agency’s May 21st public meeting concerning election official training programs. CEC’s comments stem from its support of efforts that increase confidence in election results and election systems while promoting ethics, integrity, and legal professionalism in the electoral process.

CEC supports efforts to ensure that election officials nationwide have access to well-constructed, topical, timely, and practical training programs and professional development opportunities. Election officials, including poll workers, administer elections across thousands of jurisdictions and must manage complex responsibilities involving ballot preparation, multiple modes of voting, voting equipment, pollbooks, vendors, public-facing voter service, and post-election procedures.

CEC’s comments emphasize that protecting voters’ confidence in the voting process, as well as the right of every eligible citizen to vote, requires election officials to execute complicated tasks correctly and without delay.

For that reason, CEC supports efforts to provide election officials with “top-notch training programs and professional development opportunities.” CEC also commends the EAC’s work through its Learning Lab, including recent reports that approximately 7,000 election officials have participated in EAC-led professional development training courses.

CEC further notes that the EAC’s role in this area is consistent with its federal election administration “clearinghouse” function, which Congress transferred to the EAC through the Help America Vote Act.

CEC urges the EAC to focus not only on the quantity of training available to election officials, but also, and perhaps more importantly, on the quality of that training. CEC’s comments explain that election official training should be prepared or reviewed by experts whose work reflects the intellectual and ideological diversity of the election administration profession and of the country as a whole. Given ongoing public concerns about confidence in elections and election officials, CEC emphasizes that training adopted, certified, or provided to election officials must be “above ideological reproach” and responsive to constructive feedback.

CEC concludes that any election official training program or professional development initiative that fails to meet those standards is not fit for purpose.

CEC urges the EAC to consider these comments as it conducts its public meeting on election official training programs. CEC commends efforts to improve election administration training and encourages the Commission to ensure that such training strengthens professionalism, promotes public confidence, and remains free from ideological bias.