Election Management

Harris County, Texas, the third-largest county in the U.S. with more than 4.7 million voters, was working hard during the summer of 2020 to prepare for the November election. The team managing the county’s Student Election Clerk Program, which encourages high school students who are 16 years of age or older to serve as election clerks, was overwhelmed with a completely manual system.

In less than two weeks, USDR volunteers built a completely new online application and launched a full database management system within two months. These new tools helped the Harris County Elections team process more than 7,000 applications, and staff more than 700 student election clerks across more than 100 polling locations over the early voting and Election Day periods. There were virtually no lines in Harris County on Election Day.

In March of 2021, the Harris County Elections Administrator team won a 2020 Clearinghouse Award from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, commonly known as a “Clearie” award, for its management of the state’s Student Election Clerk Program.

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In the past, Centre County, Pennsylvania’s roughly 160,000 residents struggled to register to vote, check a sample ballot, or find their polling station online. In 2020, due to COVID-19, Centre County voters were even more confused by the voting process.

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When Centre County officials approached commercial vendors about building a new website, they were quoted costs of up to $40,000. But within weeks of reaching out to USDR, Centre County was able to deploy a new election information website—for free. As many as one thousand residents per day visited the new website ahead of the election. Michael Pipe, chair of the board that oversees elections, reports that the new election website saved personnel time, provided a better experience to residents, and instilled more trust in the voting process. USDR’s partnership with Centre County was profiled in the New York Times ahead of the 2020 election.