Election officials say meticulous preparation ensures trustworthy results
From left: David Becker, executive director and founder of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, moderated a panel with Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes; Washoe County, Nevada, registrar Cari-Ann Burgess; and Dean Logan, Los Angeles county registrar-recorder/county clerk, at the ASU California Center Broadway on Sept. 13. Photo by Chad Brady
Election officials from California, Arizona and Nevada discussed hot topics in elections administration at the ASU California Center Broadway in downtown Los Angeles during the first public event of ASU’s newly launched Mechanics of Democracy Lab.
Lab director Bill Gates served as host of the Sept. 13 event. He is a professor of practice in ASU’s Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions, and he will conclude his second term as a member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in December.
Attendees included the LA-based consuls general of Ireland, France and Belgium.
Two separate discussions illuminated the diligence of U.S. elections administrators in communities of all sizes in the face of challenges to their work over the past few years. Skepticism about election integrity, and even obstruction and threats to administrators, has been rampant across the country.
Kyung Lah, senior investigative correspondent at CNN, moderated a one-on-one talk with Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, who has faced challenges since taking office in January 2021. Richer’s re-election bid was halted when he did not advance in the July 2024 Republican primary, so his term will conclude Jan. 1.
Richer said Maricopa County is ready for the Nov. 5 Presidential Election and that he has worked hard to debunk election myths and increase public trust. Running elections is an imperfect endeavor, he said, but it hinges on ethical, efficient planning and troubleshooting.
In talking with voters who suspect issues with the elections process, Richer said his approach has been respectful, making use of what he calls an “empathetic sandwich” — meaning he bookends interactions by conveying understanding about people’s feelings while asking them to consider specific facts.
Richer said it was appropriate that ASU, repeatedly top-ranked for innovation, would house a new lab geared toward the continuing advancement of the profession of election administration.
“We have to keep innovating,” he said. “We have to keep getting better.”
The second discussion was with a panel of election officials moderated by David Becker, executive director and founder of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research. The participants were: Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes; Cari-Ann Burgess, registrar in Washoe County, Nevada; and Dean Logan, Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk.
They discussed topics including physical security, voter lists, counting ballots and rumors about noncitizen voting.
In LA County, Logan said, there are 640 vote centers, and registered voters can choose where to go if they want an in-person experience. Built-in protections such as signature verification, along with severe consequences for fraudulent registration and voting, have minimized attempts at fraud. Reflexive additional policies from policymakers are not necessarily helpful and can hamper participation, he said.
“We ought to be very careful about putting up barriers to that without clear evidence and clear data to show that it’s a reasonable threat,” Logan said.
The officials said they constantly plan for predictable and unpredictable contingencies, both human-caused and weather-related, such as power outages. Fontes said he jokes that his office is “ready for everything but Godzilla.”
Amid the moments of levity, Burgess talked seriously about the rigorous nature of the profession of election administration and her consuming passion for it as a measure of fulfillment of the promise of the U.S. Constitution.
A recording of the forum is available here. Gates said the lab will host future discussions and events in Arizona, California and Washington, D.C.
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