Tommy Gong - Election Official Legal Defense Network

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Tommy Gong is the Deputy County Clerk-Recorder for Contra Costa County in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tommy has been involved with election administration in California since 2003, when he first served as Election Manager for Stanislaus County and when the previous Governor Recall Election took place. In 2005, he was hired as Assistant County Clerk-Recorder in San Luis Obispo and elected as County Clerk-Recorder in 2014. After 16 years in San Luis Obispo, Tommy recently joined Contra Costa County, the largest county in California with an elected Registrar of Voters, just before the current Governor Recall Election. With 18 years of election experience, Tommy just completed the CERA program with the Election Center this past summer.

“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")