How Concerned Should We Be About Partisan Election Officials?

What this episode covers

Elections have always been heated in America. But with Republican narratives around a “stolen” 2020 election, and fears that newly elected administrators will sway 2024, concern about the power of election officials is at a high. While it's true that some election officials are nonpartisan, in a lot of counties, local elections officials are elected by voters and they run as members of a political party. Why wouldn't they tilt an election in their party's favor? It's a fair question on some Americans' minds, and one that UCLA political scientist Dan Thompson sought to answer in a new paper, "How Partisan Is Local Election Administration?". Paper link: https://dthompson.scholar.ss.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2021/12/Ferrer_et_al_Election_Admin.pdf