When it comes to building public trust in the November elections, state and local newsrooms have their work cut out for them.
The discovery in New Jersey that the state had registered about 6,500 noncitizens generated headlines and controversy. The threat of noncitizen voting has been central to President Donald Trump’s case for stricter federal election law.
Yet only about 400 of the people identified in New Jersey cast ballots, and those votes represented the slenderest of slices of the total cast in the 2024 primary election (about one 2,500th of the total). Some of the people identified may, in fact, be citizens. Still, the issue has political traction.
A new survey shows growing mistrust in elections, but with huge differences among Republicans, Democrats and independents. A Gallup poll found that 78% of Republicans say they have a great deal or a fair amount of concern that people who are ineligible are casting ballots. That’s compared with 36% of Democrats and 48% of independents.
But some worries about election integrity run high across the board. While concern is greatest among Republicans, more than half of Democrats and independents say they worry that ballots won’t be properly handled, counted or secured.
If your newsroom has already posted an explainer on election mechanics — how voter registration works, how ballots are handled and counted — you’re ahead of the game.
If it hasn’t, the need couldn’t be clearer. The good news is this: Research shows that when voters know more about what election officials do to ensure a fair and accurate vote, trust rises.
It’s not hard to get under the hood of your local election process. Your audience will appreciate it, and your newsroom will be better prepared for Election Day coverage.
Here are some basics that every newsroom should cover before Election Day:
The registration process
This is where all voting begins. Show people the registration form and the information it gathers. Note the citizenship checkbox. List the different ways that registration can take place — at motor vehicle offices, at community events, online (42 states plus Washington, D.C.) and elsewhere. Describe the steps local officials take to match that information against other datasets to prevent duplicate registrations and ensure that each person is eligible to vote. Lay out how mail-in registration works and any special steps to validate each one.
Poll worker training
Attending poll worker training gives you material for a story while helping you build sources for election coverage, both with officials and poll workers themselves. Share a link to the poll worker handbook. Explain the rules they are told to follow. Talk to the person who oversees their work. Show the people behind the process, and remind people that these volunteers are their neighbors and come from their local community.
Vote machine testing
This won’t be the most exciting field reporting you’ll ever do, but it will give you everything you need to tell the public how officials test the equipment used to collect and count ballots. Be sure to note who has access to the machines under what conditions and what protections are in place against hacking.
Voter roll maintenance
Every jurisdiction has a process for keeping its voter rolls up to date. Election officials send postcards to people who haven’t voted in a while. They receive lists of people who have died. Voter rolls are updated regularly. Let people know how this works, including the steps officials take before removing someone’s name.
Verifying mail-in ballots
Get into the mechanics of voting by mail, from the special envelopes voters must use to how ballots are handled, how signatures are verified, where ballots are stored, who has access to them and when they are counted. Don’t forget to show how they are handled after they are counted.
The ballot handling process — the chain of custody
Election offices have multiple checks in place to ensure ballots don’t go astray. Typically, two people are involved at each step. Document the process from the moment a ballot is cast to its final storage place.
The tabulation process
Show people where, when and how votes are counted. Capture the redundancy measures in place, both in terms of the people who have access to the counting process and video cameras in the rooms where counting occurs.
Party observers
Typically, each party sends observers to monitor polling places and ballot handling. Explain how they get appointed, how many there are, where they are stationed, what they can observe and how they can communicate with party officials if issues arise.
The paper trail
The odds are your county uses paper ballots in one of two ways. Voters either mark a paper ballot directly or use a system that prints a paper record of their choices, which is fed into a tabulator. Either way, there’s a paper trail. Louisiana is the only state that doesn’t use paper ballots; some counties in other states don’t as well. Describe how your local system works and how officials can go back to the original paper if challenges arise.
The random audit
Every state conducts a post-election audit. Officials examine a sample of results to verify that election equipment worked as intended and the vote tallies are accurate. Audit procedures vary, so document what your jurisdiction does and what it has learned from the process.
What happens when mistakes happen
No process is perfect. Show what happens when voting mistakes are made, or when someone attempts to vote despite being ineligible. Put numbers in perspective by showing how previous voting errors affected election outcomes — they rarely do. Remind people that courts have investigated allegations of voter fraud; they almost always find that voting processes are robust enough to counter fraudulent voting. Warn people that viral claims spread on or shortly after Election Day are often found to be false.
Arming people with accurate information ahead of time can help them navigate all sorts of claims on Election Day. When people have a strong knowledge of the facts ahead of time, they show more resilience against false claims, hoaxes and conspiracy theories.
Examples of election system stories
- WLTX (Columbia, South Carolina): How ballots are counted during an election
- KARE 11 (Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota): Attempts to hack election data. What are Minnesota officials doing to protect your vote?
- WMUR (New Hampshire): Ballot-counting machines tested as New Hampshire town deals with suspicious texts
- Wisconsin Watch: Security seals and documentation: The life cycle of Wisconsin election ballots
- The Texas Tribune: How Texas counts ballots and keeps elections secure
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