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Eye of the Storm: How to Respond in Crisis

September 2024

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Despite your best preparations, controversy and crisis can find you. How you respond, based in part on your prior preparation, makes all the difference.

Have Your Playbook Ready

When a crisis hits, time is rarely on your side. Having defined and repeatable processes complete with pre-approved messages will streamline your actions, clarify communications responsibilities and speed your response time.

Be Responsive

Like nature, media cycles abhor a vacuum. Responding quickly, even if limited, and promising to follow up in a timely manner can give you the space you need to better understand the issue and address questions effectively.

Follow the Three A’s

When you have a full grasp of the situation, be sure you are responding appropriately and transparently.

Lean into Relationships

Third party experts can add credibility by underscoring your commitment to election security and sharing their expert opinion on actions you have taken. Encouraging media, especially those with whom you have worked to build relationships, to speak with these experts can help to diffuse the situation by providing more context.

Monitor and Adapt

Rarely do crises confine themselves to one news cycle. Have in place active monitoring tools to understand how the conversation is evolving so you can adapt your message as needed.

“They’re citizens. They’re professionals. They’re our neighbors. If we start to view our fellow citizens as our enemies, we’re lost.”
— David Becker (Republican push to recruit election deniers as poll workers causes alarm | June 30, 2022 – The Guardian)
“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.”
— Ben Ginsberg (Trump’s pressure on Pence more ‘unprecedented’ than ‘what we saw in Watergate’ | June 17, 2022 – MSNBC)
“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."
— Bob Bauer (Helping election officials who are threatened | March 14, 2022 – 60 Minutes Overtime, CBS News)
"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."
— Bob Bauer (Election Workers Are Under Attack. A Group Of Lawyers Plans To Defend Them | September 8, 2021 – National Public Radio)
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