Public administration’s role in building resilient election administration in the United States

Recent attacks on election integrity and the dehumanization of civil servants have raised concerns about the health of American democracy. Democracy administration rests on four pillars: trust/transparency, resources, education, and accountability/oversight. Election administrators, their employees, and poll workers administer democracy through these mechanisms. Ideally, centering these important public administrators via research in a way that re-humanizes the administrative process may be the ultimate strategy to stabilize the foundation upon which these pillars rest. In addition, we must incorporate election administration into the classes we teach. However, many public administration scholars do not understand the daily challenges election administrators face as our programs do not center election administration as a field of study or interest. This academic-practitioner disconnect leads to roadblocks that minimize public administration’s stated goal of democracy promotion.