Whew. What a year it’s been.
As Election-Denier-in-Chief Trump takes office, still denying the results of the 2020 election, our work to shed light on how votes are counted and elections are certified feels increasingly vital to protect our elections.
We’ve been so proud to work alongside our allies and partners this year to support democracy — work that continues to be urgent and pressing.
Before the year ends, we wanted to take a look back at our work from this past year:
Informing Democracy: 2024 By The Numbers
Our Research:
11 State Election Administration Reports released
2,690 election officials identified & researched
582 counties evaluated for commitment to democracy
50 states’ election laws surveyed in our 50 State Post-Vote Guide
200+ access requests to our 50 State Post-Vote Guide database, representing over 150 organizations
1 Post–Vote Tracker, covering 10 states with 9 post-vote process categories tracked in detail, from voting through to certification
Our Communication:
Dozens of state press briefings on the processes and personnel governing elections, national press briefings on trends Informing Democracy was monitoring ahead of the elections, and a post-mortem briefing on what went right after votes were cast thanks to robust protections
Press releases and statements responding to news of the day, supporting in-state efforts, and providing independent research to journalists
1-on-1 upskilling interviews with journalists across the country to inform their coverage of election administration
35,785+ reads of our Substack Newsletters
35% growth in Substack Newsletter Subscribers
Newsletter readers in 39 states + Washington, DC
Our Partner Engagement:
Engaged deeply with 106 partners across the country with a focus on our target states
Shared our research with over 900 state and national partners
Participated in 12 partner tables and coalitions, nationally and across 8 states
Hosted 20+ partner trainings on state reports and our 50 State Post-Vote Guide
Joined 12+ state and national conferences and presented at 1 law school symposium
Reflecting on 2024
Before getting into the thick of this election cycle, we kicked off the year by releasing the 50 State Post-Vote Guide: How We Count, Canvass, Certify, and Audit Our Elections last January. This unique survey provides an overview of the counting and certification processes across all 50 states. This database allows you to compare states or dive deep on a single state. It also includes calendars of post-vote processes across all 50 states. This research informed additional analysis, looking at the jurisdictional lay of the land across all states, as well as an exploration of the language of elections and how to understand the language of elections to debunk conspiracy theories and false claims. More than 200 individuals requested access to the full database throughout the year, representing over 150 organizations working on democracy and elections across the country.
Serving as the foundation of our research into local election officials, we built our database of 2,690 county-level election administrators and shared the resource across our key states. Not only was this a first-ever complete list of these officials, but the database also assessed which election administrators were a potential threat to free and fair elections — with the research to back it up.
As one partner said, they were able to use the database to help identify bad-faith actors to local reporters, making a complicated situation just a bit easier.
Another partner cited this research as allowing them “to focus on outreach to organizations on the ground and election workers in counties and localities where there are known insider threats who might be inclined to interfere with election administration in ways that a worker might witness and need to report.”
Though the movement to disrupt the post-election process was more muted than in 2020, due to election deniers’ support for the outcome, we identified several election officials who continued to exhibit anti-democracy activity this year. For example:
Nevada: Mike Clark in Washoe County attempted to recuse himself before leaving the meeting ahead of the certification vote. Jeanne Herman in Washoe County voted against certifying the election.
Arizona: Kevin Cavanaugh baselessly cast doubt on his losing the primary election, forcing an audit in Pinal County, and Jeff Serdy, also of Pinal County, interacted with election denial rhetoric and called for January 6 attendees to be pardoned.
Michigan: Election deniers continue to spread election denial rhetoric following the 2024 elections, including Jeffrey Dobbs of Alcona, Michele Freske of Presque Island, and Marty Lake of Lake County.
Georgia: Julie Adams of Fulton County, who previously sued over certification rules, continued to baselessly cast doubt over the certification process.
Pennsylvania: Sam DeMarco of Allegheny County accused candidate Bob Casey of trying to “steal” the election as votes were being counted. Montgomery County’s Tom DiBello shared election denial conspiracies during the post-vote process, as did Todd Graybill of Juniata County.
North Carolina: Anthony Iovino of Burke County shared a post claiming this would be the last election if Kamala Harris had won; Phil Ingle of Caldwell County accused Harris of calling for an insurrection.
Our Election Officials Database informed our Counties of Concern Analysis, where we developed a warning system to identify counties most vulnerable to potential exploitation due to past actions or public posts and statements from election officials. Fortunately, there were no widespread attempts to derail the post-vote process. However, we did see notable action against certification in Washoe County, NV, the only high-threat county we had identified in the state.
We released 11 State Election Administration reports detailing how votes are counted and certified in the states, and the officials who oversee those processes. The reports included calendars of key dates for the post-vote period in each state. Each state report also shared an assessment of potential threats to monitor, overlaying our understanding of vulnerabilities within the law with an assessment of election personnel who posed a high threat to fair election administration.
As one partner noted, these vulnerability assessments allowed the team to anticipate “the primary threats in the battleground states…so we can analyze and more quickly verify/assess possible allegations of illegal election interference.”
A few of the vulnerabilities we were able to warn partners about that went on to impact the post-election process include:
Pennsylvania: The highly decentralized system of election administration in the state led to confusion and variation in procedures in the counting and canvassing process. We saw this both in how Luzerne County dealt with its misprinted ballot issue and across multiple counties in the approaches they took to the eligibility of misdated and undated ballots – which required court intervention to resolve. We also correctly predicted that mass challenges of voters’ eligibility to cast mail-in ballots would be an issue to watch for in the state.
North Carolina: The centralization of oversight and appointment power in the Office of the Governor resulted in the legislature having an ongoing partisan interest in attempting to subvert the system. We are sadly now seeing in the recent passage and veto override of a bill stripping those powers from the Governor and moving them to a Republican-held office. We also warned partners that bad faith protests and contests would likely be used as a delay tactic or to attempt to overturn the democratic will of the voters, which we unfortunately saw when Republicans challenged 60,000 ballots in the Supreme Court race — protests that were thankfully recently dismissed.
Wisconsin and Michigan: The high turnover of election administration officials coupled with a decentralized system created a greater risk of human error in the counting process. These situations may have contributed to the kind of errors which occurred in the city of Milwaukee, WI, and Calhoun County, MI. That these errors were quickly identified and corrected, however, also highlighted the importance and efficacy of the checks and balances built into the canvassing process in both states. We also warned there would be a continuing movement to hand count ballots in the state. We saw a hand count requested by the Irving Township Clerk, MI (a request that was rejected), and we saw two Rock River, MI Clerks removed for attempting to illegally hand count ballots.
We leveraged our research on post-vote counting and certification steps to create and share our Post-Vote Tracker. This tracker provided updates on nine post-vote process steps across our core ten states as they were taking place — noting where things were progressing as expected, or where there was a deviation from the expected norm or timeline.
One state partner noted that this tracker alleviated their need to constantly provide updates to interested parties, freeing their capacity for other on-the-ground work.
During the post-vote period, we provided regular updates about where states were in the tabulation and certification process, along with tracking contests, recounts, and pending legal action.
To amplify this research and help broaden the reach of our expertise with advocates and journalists alike, we coordinated with media at the national and local level to:
Host nationwide press briefings with key political and campaign reporters ahead of the general election to detail the trends Informing Democracy found across various states, as well as reiterate guidance for their reporting
Hold in-depth press briefings diving into the new research we found on the processes and personnel behind vote counting and certification in various states
Coordinate dozens of interviews with journalists at state-based and national news outlets covering the election
Distribute Informing Democracy’s research to a wide audience of thousands of journalists at television and radio stations, reporters at newspapers and magazines small and large, podcasts, and more.
To help drive responsible coverage around election administration, we also released a memo on how to talk about the election to counter growing anti-democracy narratives responsibly. This included a primer on certification, answering some of the most commonly asked questions, and making it clear that failure to certify was not an option.
In addition to our research, analyses, and communication efforts, the Informing Democracy team supported our partners and allies in a myriad of other ways, including:
Election law counsel from our team supported partner election protection boiler rooms
We provided observer training on certification for partners in Ohio
We conducted research into Wisconsin’s observer recount process for state partners
In Georgia, our election law counsel quickly turned around research and analysis of proposed state rules to support a coalition-wide response to last-minute and illegal state board rule-making attempts.
We helped shape common definitions around key terms like “election denier” in the pro-democracy community
Our research on election officials helped partners plan and execute their election monitoring work
We completed all this work while also regularly joining, and with support from, state partner table calls and in-person meetings across our key states. It was invaluable to have these forums to share our research and collaborate on other coalition efforts.
We were also deliberate about making our work publicly accessible, knowing that its utility would extend to efforts and organizations with which we weren’t directly working. We wanted to make sure that everyone working on the side of democracy had the tools at hand they needed for success.
Looking Ahead
While we are incredibly proud of the work we did this year, we know it was just one step in the continued fight to sustain our democracy.
As we look ahead to 2025, our goal is to continue to increase confidence in our elections by providing a central repository of research and information about how votes are counted and how elections are certified at the state and local level.
We will continue to hold anti-democracy election administrators accountable for any efforts to undermine democracy, tracking activity between elections, when much damage can be caused to local election administration.
We’ve also got our eye on some key trends we’re anticipating in 2025. You can read more about those in our recent post here:
What we’re watching for in 2025
The 2024 election cycle is now at a close. Except for a handful of local races that are still subject to recounts, states have finished certifying and are now concluding the final steps of the post-vote process, including final audits in places like Ohio and Michigan. States are issuing certificates of ascertainment, with presidential electors set to me…
At the end of the day, the anti-democracy movement’s goal is to sow doubt about our election systems. We are committed to fighting every day to counter this harm and be a source of transparency for our elections, in order to strengthen our democracy and support the dedicated public servants who make our elections possible.