Joseph Kirk - Election Official Legal Defense Network

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Joseph Kirk is an election administrator with a history of conducting secure and transparent elections. Joseph began his career by testing and supporting Georgia’s first statewide voting system from 2002-2005 before implementing Mississippi’s TSX Voting System from 2005-2007. In 2007, he accepted his current position as Election Supervisor of Bartow County, Georgia. Joseph graduated from the University of Georgia with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and serves on the Executive Board of the Georgia Association of Voter Registrars and Election Officials.  

“They’re citizens. They’re professionals. They’re our neighbors. If we start to view our fellow citizens as our enemies, we’re lost.”

“Election officials never get praised if elections go right and the wrath comes down on them if they do them wrong. When we saw election officials being prosecuted for just doing their jobs... we formed [EOLDN] and we do provide pro bono legal services to any election officials who need it.”

“Those who are threatening … these officials, whether they're full-time, whether they're volunteers, whether they're in positions of the most senior responsibility or they're simply on the staff — those who threaten them need to know they cannot act with impunity. There will be a defense and it will be a robust defense."

"What we are seeing developing now is a huge step backwards from a focus on professionalized election administration to a heavy level of political interference in the work of trained election professionals. Our hope now is to provide [election officials] with a resource I wish they didn't have to have, but one I think they have desperately needed."

A Project of The Center for Election Innovation & Research ("CEIR")