“It’s just support. It’s general support,” which New Hampshire could use from the federal government, its chief election official says. “Leave the actual processes up to the states.”
Poll worker shortages are a common concern of election officials nationwide. In West Virginia and Tennessee, the secretaries of state try out something new to aid recruitment efforts.
Declare’s new Q&A series answers timely questions about elections with the people best-positioned to know.
“Quite frankly, we’re best off when the federal government stays out of our elections.”
It’s a feature, not a glitch, that elections in this country are very decentralized, and that decentralized nature of elections administration has been a feature since the Founding.
Starting with a summer conference for America’s secretaries of state, three-plus months from the 2026 Midterms, Declare is spending time with chief election officials to get their insights on the election process.
Declare Talks with Stephen Richer
The chief election official in one of America’s biggest college towns talks about the task of communicating to voters.
Declare tours a county of around 57,000 residents with the local election official responsible for organizing their primary election.
Former Kentucky secretary of state Trey Grayson talks about federalism and the shoe finding the other foot, in response to President Trump’s executive order on elections.
A suit between the RNC and Mississippi will determine the fate of mail ballot rules in at least 14 states. Declare reports from outside the Supreme Court.
13 GOP members of Congress wrote the Postmaster General this month, asking for the steps his agency is taking to ensure mail ballots are “processed, postmarked, and delivered in a timely manner.”