Voting & Democracy

Nonpartisan Election Administration

wide, dark blue graphic with red text that reads 'Guardrails for the Guardians' in all capital letters on the left half. The right half has a visual representation of lady justice holding scales up with her right hand while wearing a blindfold and holding the hilt of a sword in her left hand.

About This Principle of Democracy

One of the bedrock principles of holding an election is that it is run on a nonpartisan, impartial basis. As it stands, that’s true for all advanced democracies except the United States. One reason is that our Constitution gave away most election administration to the states without establishing any national standards for impartiality. Since 2020, six states—Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Oklahoma—have passed new laws that open the door to partisan interference in elections and/or threaten the people and processes that make elections work.

Impartial election administration does still occur in practice. In the 2020 election, we saw top election officials resist outside pressure to change the final count, and the state electors were certified to decide the presidential election. Fortunately, these officials followed nonpartisan principles, drawing on their professional commitment to impartiality based on their understanding of the oath they took to uphold their state constitution. But nowhere are there national standards for impartiality built into the administrative design.

Today, in most states, the position of chief election official is held by the secretary of state, who is elected and takes office aligned with a political party. Recently, partisanship has been on the rise. In 2020, the Election Reformers Network and the Campaign Legal Center issued a report, “Guardrails for the Guardians,” that found since 2000:

  • Of the 137 elected secretaries of state serving between 2000 and 2020, 46 made at least one public endorsement for a candidate running in a race under their supervision.
  • 12 served as a co-chair of a presidential election campaign.
  • 153 sitting secretaries of state have run for office without any available evidence that the secretary took any public step to be recused from any conflict of interest, such as overseeing their own re-election or election to a higher office.
  • At the same time, the political action committees of the Democratic and Republican Associations of Secretaries of State weighed in on elections through fundraising, endorsements, and electioneering.

Ten states have nonpartisan election boards or commissions to run elections. A step forward, though done largely to balance the interests of the two major parties.

How It Should Work: Recommendations

The Election Reformers Network, made up of past election administrators, recommends that states:

  • Separate the election function from the office of the secretary of state and into a new dedicated entity. For example, a more neutral and apolitical version of current U.S. state election boards or commissions.
  • Include on these election boards members who are politically independent.
  • Consider calling on retired judges as is often done in other countries for this purpose.
  • Add or incorporate an oath of impartiality to be taken by those most responsible for election administration.
  • Prohibit partisan actions by secretaries of state and election board members, such as public endorsements of candidates running for office, accepting campaign positions for candidates or ballot questions, and fundraising and electioneering for or against any candidate.

Benefits

  • National standards for nonpartisanship set a clearer roadmap for all states to follow for national and state elections.
  • Removing the cloud of partisan intervention in elections that undermines public trust in elections and government.
  • Standard oaths of office for secretaries of state or other election officials would make commitments to impartiality more explicit.

Impartial election administration doesn’t guarantee confidence in fair elections. But keeping elections under partisan control will guarantee that the public’s declining trust in voting and elections will continue. Election administrators held the line in 2020; 2022 will be the next test.

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