The Story of Running Free and Fair Elections
Meet Nancy, a Local Elections Official
Once upon a time, a local elections official named Nancy was committed to running fair and free elections to ensure that every person in her county could vote.
Nancy connected with the Center for Tech and Civic Life to learn about best practices in election administration, reviewed her state's voting rules, and learned about new policies championed by the Center for Secure and Modern Elections and Institute for Responsive Government.
Armed with information, she developed an action plan.
Unfortunately, a few months before the election, anti-voting advocates tried to throw out the state rules and make it harder for the people of color and low-income people in her county to vote. They tried to change the dates of early voting. They tried to ban tribal IDs from being accepted at polling places. They tried to limit the number of drop boxes available to voters.
This made Nancy angry, but she wasn’t exactly sure what to do.
Luckily, Nancy was invited to an event hosted by Public Rights Project (PRP) to get together with other election administrators and learn about her unique authority as an official.
After the meeting, she decided to join an amicus brief drafted by Public Rights Project to push back on the anti-voting advocates threatening the election and ask her state court to reinstate the election rules.
Guess what? Nancy’s expertise was persuasive to the court. They won!
Still, Nancy’s mission wasn’t done.
A month before the election, a group of conspiracy theorists on Nancy’s county commission tried to make voting harder again by defunding Nancy’s office.
Luckily, this time, she knew exactly who to call.
She reached out to Public Rights Project to understand her legal options for getting her funding back. She also reached out to PRP’s partner States United Democracy Center, to help get other state officials involved on her behalf.
Nancy took this new information to her county commission and got her funding back!
Nancy wasn’t alone in her struggles. Her friend Sue, an election administrator in another county, learned that her budget was going to be cut too.
To make things worse, she got caught up in a lawsuit brought against her county by the ACLU even though she agreed with the ACLU.
That’s when PRP stepped in to represent Sue as a “friendly defendant” in the lawsuit. With PRP’s support, Sue was able to focus on running the election.
While the suit was still pending and election day was fast approaching, Nancy and Sue faced yet another challenge.
Militia members carrying assault weapons had started patrolling their polling places. This was terrifying to their poll workers and voters alike.
Public Rights Project reached out to Protect Democracy for their help, and they sued the militia and got an injunction. Still, the militia members wouldn’t stop.
So Nancy and Sue reached out to Public Rights Project again, and we connected them with their local district attorneys (DAs), who we had already trained and who knew what to do.
With the support of their DAs, Nancy and Sue were finally able to protect their polling places, and voters continued to vote without feeling afraid.
Thanks to all of their hard work, Nancy and Sue were able to successfully administer their primary and general elections and make sure that every person could vote.
