Election officials are heading into the 2026 election with long to-do lists and limited time, and ensuring election websites are up to date and easy to navigate should be top of mind. These recommendations do not call for a redesign, a new vendor, or a large budget. Instead, these are small, practical changes an election office can make on its own.
For most voters, state and local election websites are the first place they go to figure out how to register, where to vote, or when their ballot is due. When they find a clear answer quickly, they leave feeling confident. When they can’t, they get frustrated, and some turn to unofficial sources that may have inaccurate information.
States United’s research, which matched pre-election survey responses to verified voting records, found that as many as 5.7 million more Americans might have voted in 2024 if their confidence in elections had been higher. That is a turnout difference of roughly 3 percentage points across parties. Confidence is built with one clear, trustworthy answer at a time, and election officials’ websites are the most direct way to deliver it.
The good news is that many of the highest-impact improvements for election websites are among the easiest to make and fully within an election office’s control. Here are five simple places to start.
1. Put the most common voter tasks at the top of your homepage
Voters usually arrive to an election website with a specific task in mind: register to vote, check their registration, find their polling place, request or track a mail ballot, or look up a deadline. If those actions are not visible as soon as the page loads, especially on a phone, voters must hunt for them. Some will just give up.
Make the highest-demand tasks prominent at the top of the homepage, with clear links or buttons. This is usually a matter of rearranging existing content, not building anything new. It can meaningfully cut down on confusion and calls to the election office.
2. Make key election dates easy to find
Deadlines are some of the most searched and most consequential information on an election website. An eligible voter who misses a registration or ballot-return deadline can lose their chance to vote entirely.
Put the key dates in plain language and make them easy to find. Often, the simplest approach is to place them near the top of your elections landing page. Wherever that information lives, give voters the actual calendar date, not just the rule. Instead of “registration closes 15 days before Election Day,” show both: “Registration closes 15 days before Election Day. That’s [Month Day, Year] this cycle.” Write the dates as text rather than burying them in a PDF or image, and add a visible “last updated” note so voters and partner organizations know the information is current.
3. Add short step-by-step instructions for confusing tasks
Some tasks trip voters up: voting by mail, curing a ballot, voting provisionally, or voting from overseas. A brief numbered list that walks through the process in order can prevent voter mistakes, reduce abandoned forms, and cut down on phone calls.
It’s also worth adding a short, plain-language explanation of how a ballot is marked, cast, counted, and verified. Most voters have never seen this spelled out, and a clear description does double duty: it helps first-time voters and quietly answers the questions that misinformation tends to exacerbate. Even when the underlying rules are complex, a three-to-five-step overview gives people a place to start.
4. Replace vague links with descriptive ones
Links that read “Click here,” “More,” or “Learn more” leave voters guessing where they will end up. They are especially difficult for people using screen readers, who often navigate by jumping from link to link. Descriptive links help everyone.
This is one of the fastest changes on the list, because it’s just updating the words. Review the homepage and top voter pages and swap in labels that say where the link goes: “Check Your Registration Status,” “View Early Voting Locations,” “Request a Mail Ballot.” This is both clearer for voters and better for accessibility.
5. Run a broken-link and outdated-content check
Nothing undercuts trust faster than a dead link or a page still showing last cycle’s dates. When a site looks neglected, voters start to wonder what else might be out of date. That doubt is exactly what election officials are working to prevent.
Before each major deadline, sweep the top 20 to 30 voter pages for broken links, outdated dates, old forms, expired banners, and references to past elections. Make sure any page with a deadline shows a clear “last updated” date. It’s a quick, recurring habit that pays off in credibility.
Conclusion
None of these five changes will overhaul an election website, and that is the point. They are small, sustainable improvements that fit into a busy pre-election calendar and add up to a site voters can more effectively use. That is one of the most direct ways to strengthen confidence in the process.
This is a joint post from the States United Democracy Center and U.S. Digital Response.
