Election Official and Poll Worker Recruitment, Training, and Retention

Topics in this are that have been subjected to research include:

• Who election officials are and what they do
• How election officials arrive at their positions
• Credentialing and other forms of professionalization
• Stressors faced by election officials
• Structures of local election offices
• Methods of selection – elected vs. appointed
• Who poll workers are
• Poll worker training

While research has been conducted that provides basic contours of descriptive features of the election administration workforce, much of this research has been unsystematic, leaving large gaps in the literature still to explore.  Among the areas that would benefit from short- and long-term academic-election official research collaborations include the following:

• What would a census of the actual election administration workforce show us?
• How does this workforce compare with the broader public administration workforce? 
• Does method of selection have any real impacts? 
• Is there more movement in and out of the profession now than in the past?
• How much does the vendor community comprise or augment the workforce? 
• To what extent does extant training reflect established methods from the science of teaching and learning field? 
• How does training and certification matter? 
• What approaches to training work best for different types of poll workers? 
• Does the array of “best practices” and prevailing wisdom related to workforce development stand up to systematic investigation in the area of election administration?  Do these practices travel across states and jurisdiction sizes and types? 
• What approaches to recruitment and retention are most effective in ensuring a diverse body of election officials and poll workers? 
• What factors actually influence recruitment of election officials and poll workers? 
• What factors actually influence retention of election officials and poll workers?  What are the best ways to mitigate pressure on the workforce?