It’s a big election year with an imposing backdrop: swirling misinformation, changing laws around voting and deep concerns about the health of American democracy.
On top of a monumental presidential election, U.S. voters will select 11 governors, 34 U.S. Senators and 82 state supreme court justices, decide dozens of statewide ballot measures and choose literally thousands of state and local officials.
So, now is an ideal time to make some election resolutions for 2024. For that, we turned to Tammy Patrick.
Patrick has two decades of experience working in elections. That includes 11 years in Maricopa County, Arizona, where she worked to ensure compliance with federal laws by making voting accessible for disabled voters, non-English-speaking residents and other groups. She served on the Presidential Commission on Election Administration in 2013 and 2014, making recommendations about modernizing elections.
These days, Patrick is the CEO of programs for the National Association of Election Officials, also known as the Election Center, where she works with officials across the country.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. 2024 is a presidential election year. Americans are going to be bombarded with election information from every direction, and so I hoped you might suggest some New Year’s resolutions for different groups of people to keep in mind. Let’s start with the main characters in any election: the voters. What resolution would you recommend for voters this year?
So I have two resolutions for voters. The first is to think critically. So when hearing any information, think about the source, where it’s coming from, is it an official source, and think about the motivations that the person may have in whatever it is that they’re saying.
Look for the truth and the facts. And that might be challenging in this moment.
But the second resolution is easier. And that is to take early action. So no matter how or where you want to vote, or who you want to vote for, make sure that you take early action. Make sure that you’re registered early, that your information is current. If you want to vote by mail, get your application in early.
If you take early action, if there is a problem with your registration, or there is a problem with [mail] delivery or there is a problem at your polling place, you have the ability to make sure that any issue that might arise can be addressed and remedied so that your vote gets counted.
So that early action is going to be critical in 2024, in the same way that it was in 2020. Part of the reason we had such a phenomenal turnout is that people took early action.
Q. Let’s zero in on one specific group of voters. Millions of Americans will be voting for the first time this year. What should they know before casting their first ballot?
In most states, you have to register in order to participate. And in many states, there’s a deadline, and that deadline is oftentimes weeks before the election.
And so that’s why it’s important to find out what the parameters are to participate, and get that registration in as early as possible.
The second phase is, once you’re registered, decide how you want to vote. Not who you want to vote for, but do you want to vote by mail? Do you want to vote early in person? Do you want to vote only on Tuesday on Election Day? And find out if those options are even open and available in your state, because they’re not in every state.
Q. You were an election official in Arizona, and you’ve helped support and advocate for local election officials in recent years, as their work has come under attack. What’s a resolution for local election officials for 2024?
Take a deep breath. Presidential election cycles are always very challenging: They’re long hours with little pay, and sometimes little resources or support. But it’s so critical, the work that gets done. We want to make sure that election officials remember to take a moment for themselves and their families.
It’s like when you’re on the airplane and they say to put your mask on first, so that you can help others put their masks on. Election officials need to follow that advice.
And then to keep their eye on the prize. And the prize is to make sure that our elections are conducted with integrity, with security, and that all eligible voters have unencumbered access to exercising their rights. That’s the dedication of the profession. And it’s important for election officials to remember the role that they play in what I think is the best example of a free and fair democracy that the world has ever seen. They play a big role in this great experiment.
Q. People get much of their information about elections from the media. So let’s focus on my industry for a moment. What resolution do you have for the reporters and editors covering elections this year?
Get to know your election official. Identify early on good resources, good sources of information.
The second piece is, you have to know what’s right so you can identify what’s wrong. What I mean by that is, it’s important that we start covering and thinking about the election beat well before the election actually happens. Far too often, we focus on the horse race, and then we start to talk about the election administration side of it right at Election Day. And that’s too late.
So if you engage early and get to know your election officials — get that B-roll when they’re doing logic and accuracy testing, or it’s B-roll when they’re providing tours of their facilities, that sort of thing — you get an understanding of the security measures, what kind of equipment they use, what the rules are.
And that is helpful so that when the mis- and disinformation comes, you can easily look at it and say, “You know what, that’s not true or accurate, because the laws are not what they’re saying.” Or, “The equipment that they use in that state is actually not what’s in that picture.”
So that’s why it’s important to know what’s right. So that you can report when you see things that are, in fact, wrong.
Q. What resolution would you give to candidates for elected office? And specifically, what can they do to help promote trust in elections this year?
Elections, just by their very definition, have losers. People shouldn’t run for office if they aren’t willing to concede when they lose.
And that’s not to say that if you believe that there was something untoward or fraudulent or criminal that occurred in the process, that you shouldn’t challenge that in a court of law. But those types of challenges have to have facts and evidence.
And so for candidates that are running for office, I would implore them to concede, once it is demonstrated by official reports and by the courts that they’ve lost. They should concede and concede in a way that engenders trust in the process, and allows us to fulfill our tradition of a peaceful transition of power in all offices.
We talk about that often for president. But in every office, that peaceful transition of power is something that we need to embrace.
Q. You mentioned courts. So often, election laws and regulations end up litigated in the courts. Sometimes even the outcome of an election makes its way to the judicial branch. Is there any resolution you’d like to give for the judicial branch?
In Arizona, they identify which judges will see the election cases before the elections even happen. And so those judges had the ability to review both election statutes as well as case law, and would have a better understanding of what might come before them, whether it was nomination petition challenges or the challenges to the official results.
It’s important in this moment that there isn’t any one person, any one branch of government, or any one individual that has the ability to overturn what the voters have decided. And whether that’s a poll worker, a county board of supervisors or a judge, we want to make sure that everyone understands the rules of engagement before the first vote is cast. And that everyone is willing to uphold those rules, and make sure that at the end of the day, what decides who wins an election in the United States still resides in the number of votes that someone gets, rather than someone in a position of power’s decision.
Q. What other resolutions or pieces of advice do you have as we move deeper into election season?
Elections are conducted in the United States by hundreds of thousands of people. And I think it’s important for all of us to understand that, while we might have our own personal preference on who wins, at the end of the day, as Americans, we have to agree that we believe in a process where we identify winners based on the votes of the people. That we are all willing to get back to a time of civility and embracing the process. Rather than a time when, if your team doesn’t win, there’s riots in the street.
If we can all agree that that’s the foundation of our democratic republic, and we go into 2024 with all of those agreed-upon rules, then I think we’re going to have an outstanding 2024 election cycle, with high turnout and hopefully wide margins.