Why Election Governance Matters
There’s a problem facing American elections that very few people talk about. It’s a problem arising more from bad rules than from bad guys, and that’s probably why you haven’t heard much about it.
The problem is that we allow partisan officials — often elected or appointed by parties — to run key phases of our elections. It’s a bit like letting competing teams pick the referees.
Doing so creates what we at Election Reformers Network call “conflicts of interest in our election governance system.” That’s a mouthful, so let’s break it down.
“Election governance” is a term we’ve elevated to refer to the oversight of elections and key election processes. Secretaries of state and election boards are part of election governance. So, too, are bodies that manage ballot measure processes and control redistricting, whether independent commissions or legislative committees.
It’s worth distinguishing between election governance — where people make decisions that impact elections — and election administration — where detailed rules determine all procedures and leave little room for discretion.
When it comes to threats to our democracy, election administration is in very good shape: there’s little evidence of or reason to fear election manipulation at the administrative level (though human error is always a risk, one exacerbated by stingy funding).
Election governance, however, is a significant potential risk area because partisan officials with close links to parties have discretion over key decisions. That’s where the “conflict of interest” part comes in, because these officials can have dual conflicting loyalties.
As election officials, they are pledged to neutrally oversee elections, but as politicians with a political career to build or sustain, they sometimes have an incentive to help their side win.
Some governance bodies are well designed to remove or reduce conflicts of interest. For example, members of independent redistricting commissions are typically prevented by law from running for office in the districts they draw, and in some states conflict of interest policies have recently been adopted for secretaries of state when they run for office.
Legislative redistricting, by contrast, is rife with conflicts of interest. If you’re a legislator in the majority party in your state, you get to draw lines that help you win your re-election, help your state party protect its majority in the legislature, and help your party win more seats in Congress.
That’s a massive set of conflicts of interest — no wonder every other democracy on the planet has done away with legislative control of redistricting.
Ballot measure management is another area of deep conflict of interest because it involves roles for leaders of one party, usually the secretary of state or attorney general, that can influence the outcome of votes directly affecting the party’s interests.
There is perhaps no clearer example of this than Ohio’s 2024 Issue 1, a citizen initiative meant to establish an independent redistricting commission. The initiative narrowly lost, probably due to misleading ballot language, written by the secretary of state. The summary voters saw on the ballot said that the proposed amendment would “eliminate the longstanding ability of Ohio citizens to hold their Representatives accountable ... [and] establish a new taxpayer-funded commission of appointees required to gerrymander…”
While many of the institutional reforms needed to prevent these problems will take time to adopt, there are changes we can implement now that can increase impartiality in election governance, and enable other important reforms in the future.
Protecting ballot measures from partisan interference should be a top priority. It is already underway in Missouri and will likely spread to other states. Continuing to advocate for fair redistricting is ever-more important amid our worsening gerrymandering wars. And encouraging sitting secretaries of state — and other election officials running for office — to publicly commit to neutrality are steps we can take to raise awareness about the importance of impartial election governance.
The bottom line is this: in our time of increasingly dangerous partisan clashes, we need to prioritize election governance reforms that ensure those in charge are visibly neutral, impartial, and above the fray. These changes can be a huge step toward restoring sanity to our democracy.