Newsletter
Largest election jurisdictions face higher levels of harassment
March 2025
Neal Kelley, former Registrar of Voters for Orange County, CA and EOLDN advisory board member, and Pam Anderson, former Jefferson County, CO Clerk and CEIR board member, connected with our team at the PLEJ conference.
Heightened misinformation, harassment plague EOs in large jurisdictions
The United States has over 10,000 election jurisdictions, yet five percent of them process and count the ballots of the majority of American voters.
These largest counties and municipalities face heightened problems with public trust. According to a recent report from the Elections & Voting Information Center, election officials in the largest jurisdictions, consisting of over 100,000 registered voters, are nearly three times more likely than officials from the smallest jurisdictions to consider misinformation a serious problem. Misinformation is detrimental to public trust in elections and fuels much of the targeting, threats, and vitriol that election workers face. Unsurprisingly, given this environment, 27 percent of election officials in the largest jurisdictions reported considering leaving their jobs due to harassment, compared to 10 percent of their counterparts in the smallest jurisdictions.
EOLDN was grateful to support and attend the Winter 2025 Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions (PLEJ) In-Person Convening last month. Conference programming emphasized federal election legislation, election security, and other current and anticipated challenges facing election workers. EOLDN staff also discussed our pro bono legal matching service with election-official attendees and strategized with members of the CEIR and EOLDN advisory boards about how to best support election officials.
Since 2021, EOLDN has assisted election officials of all jurisdiction sizes, and we are honored to match them with experienced, dedicated attorneys, at no cost.
NV law protecting election workers faces legal challenge
35 states and Washington DC have implemented laws to protect election officials and poll workers, addressing a variety of topics from doxing to interference with an election official’s job duties. However, four plaintiffs have challenged a 2023 Nevada law.
Nevada’s law criminalizes doxing, intimidating, threatening, or using force to retaliate or interfere with an election worker’s official duties. Plaintiffs claim that the law is vague and could infringe on their rights to observe the election process without fear of prosecution. A U.S. District Court determined that the plaintiffs did not sufficiently demonstrate a credible threat of prosecution. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the case on March 7.
What is EOLDN?
EOLDN matches experienced pro bono attorneys with election officials who have been harassed and intimidated on the job or who fear targeting or retaliation simply for doing their jobs.
Election Officials: Request Help
Request assistance on our website or contact us via email at help@eoldn.org or phone at 1-877-313-5210 anytime.
Click here for EOLDN Terms and Conditions. If you believe you’re eligible to receive help from EOLDN and are interested in requesting assistance from a pro bono attorney, we encourage you to get in touch.
Attorneys: Join Our Network
Please forward this message to attorney contacts, so EOLDN is prepared for 2025 and beyond. We need all types of attorneys, as election officials can experience a wide variety of legal issues stemming from their duties, and many simply need general guidance. Learn about joining the network as a pro bono attorney, or as a law firm, here.
Interested in helping us recruit other attorneys or firms into the network? We have information to help you present EOLDN to other lawyers. Please email outreach@eoldn.org for more information.
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