How much will 2026 test U.S. election systems?

Guest:	Donald Palmer
Title:	Chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission
Summary:	Election offices are heading into 2026 with real pressure on staffing, administration, and public confidence. New proposals at the federal level could add to the workload as local officials prepare for a complex election cycle. We're breaking down the biggest challenges and tackling the most pressing questions.

The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton provides expert insights on current events in the federal community. Read more interviews to keep up with daily news and analysis that affect the federal workforce. Reach out to Terry and the Federal Drive producers with feedback and story ideas at FederalDrive@federalnewsnetwork.com.

Interview transcript:

Terry Gerton The Election Assistance Commission has been sounding the alarm that states still need thousands of trained poll workers for the 2026 elections. Why is staffing the front line of election administration still such a persistent challenge?

Donald Palmer Well, that’s a tough issue, Terry. It’s hard to exactly know. I think it’s because so many of our parents have served as poll workers, right? And that generation is now retiring or moving on. It can be a long day. But what that means is that we need the new generations to come up from behind and start serving and volunteering to be poll workers. Voting in person is a significant way of voting. People love it, there’s community about that. And so to keep that option alive, we need to have citizens that are willing to be poll workers and the counties are telling us that often they have enough poll workers, about 50% of the localities in our surveys told us that they seem to be okay in recruiting. But 50% percent of the localities across the country have difficulty recruiting. So we’re trying to mitigate this problem and help counties across the country recruit poll workers.

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Terry Gerton And if they don’t have enough poll workers, what’s at stake? Do they consolidate voting places so there are fewer of them?

Donald Palmer There may be fewer of them, or there may be lines. Because if you have three poll workers processing voters and you really need four or five, what that means is people may have to wait longer. And so the best thing to do is to be fully staffed at the polling place, as designed, so people can make this an easy, transparent process with adequate poll workers. That really is the consequence of not having enough — is it’s just going to take longer, there’ll be more congestion. It would be less of a positive experience for voters.

Terry Gerton The EAC supports the Help America Vote Day and tries to generate interest and enthusiasm for volunteering. How did that go this year?

Donald Palmer It went great. A majority of the states participated, even in sort of an off year, but we are going to be doing additional recruitment later on in the year, in the summer. But I think it went great. We had events across the country that talked about the need to recruit poll workers and to basically thank poll workers and veterans, particularly, who had also served as poll workers. We want to make sure that the poll workers that are serving are recognized, that we do appreciate what they do. When people volunteer and become poll workers, they recognize the importance of the duty.

Terry Gerton Just a quick promo here for people who might be interested in volunteering. Where should they go first?

Donald Palmer Well, I think first, if they know their website, usually you can volunteer right there. What we do at helpamericavote.gov is we link to basically the vast majority of localities’ page where you can sign up to be a poll worker. We try to make that a little bit easier if you may not know, but generally just calling or emailing your election official and telling them, I’d like to volunteer — they will train you, they will pay you and it’s very rewarding.

Terry Gerton One of the risks to successful elections is not having enough poll workers, but we’ve got a big election coming up in 2026. A lot of people talking about that, the midterm elections. And when you think about this cycle, what are the biggest operational risks that election officials are preparing for? Is it staffing? Is it security? Is it something else?

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Donald Palmer I think it’s still the operations of the polling place. I wouldn’t call it a grind, but every cycle, election officials need to identify the polling places, make sure they’re adequate for voters, and then they need to recruit enough poll workers to man them. And so that’s a process that takes place every year, like in Virginia, or every two years in many of the states around the country. But I do think that that we have new challenges, like the security of our voting process. We want to make sure that we mitigate any cybersecurity issues or physical security issues. And so mission No. 1 of the state — and I served in Virginia as the [elections] secretary a while back — you want to take care of your people and make sure they feel comfortable in their job. A lot of that is encouraging them and keeping them safe.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Donald Palmer. He currently serves as the chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Mr. Palmer, the president recently said that Republicans should take over and nationalize elections, at least in 15 states. But the Constitution gives states this authority. So for voters who are trying to make sense of this, could you just simply maybe explain how decentralized election administration actually protects the process and where the limits of federal authority actually are?

Donald Palmer Well, the elections are extremely decentralized. Having served at the state level, and I was in Virginia as I mentioned, there were 134, and then it was reduced to 133, different localities. The elections are basically administered and run in each of these localities — some very large, like Arlington and some very, very small, out in western Virginia, the Western part of Virginia. Each of those localities have electoral boards. They basically administer the election, and the results are then provided to Richmond. It’s the same thing in most states. The elections are going to be run at the local level. The federal government is there to support and assist, and that’s what the Election Assistance Commission does. Just like on the poll workers, we understand that we are not recruiting poll workers for ourselves. We’re helping states and localities across the country recruit poll workers for their elections that they conduct each year.

Terry Gerton Many state and local officials are already bracing for possible federal pressure after the president’s comments. Is the EAC giving advice to jurisdictions about how to maintain lawful, stable operations if political actors attempt to intervene?

Donald Palmer Well, that’s a tough question. I think that what we do is we support election officials and simply, what do they need to freely and fairly administer elections? We do provide federal grants occasionally to support state and local funding, but we are certainly not in the business of politics, or telling them how to run their elections, or the policies, frankly. There are federal laws that involve voting in elections — the Voting Rights Act, the Help America Vote Act, for one; the National Voter Registration Act. But to be frank, most policies are actually passed and implemented in each state. And that can be a source of frustration, because you may love the laws in Florida and then you say, well, I really don’t like what’s going on in this state. I’m sure it goes both ways. But that’s sort of the way our system has been, very decentralized federalist system, where the federal government supports and there are certain guidelines that must be met at the federal level, but the actual administration and most of the policies are at the state level. That’s the way it’s been since our founding and it probably will be for the foreseeable future.

Terry Gerton Well, let’s dig into those federal laws because the SAVE Act has been getting a lot of coverage lately. I work as a polling place registrar in Arlington County in Virginia, so I see firsthand how voter eligibility checks actually work at the local level. And so as Congress debates the SAVE Act and the documentation requirements, what practical impacts would a law like that have on local election offices, both in terms of administrative burden and the accuracy of the voter rolls?

Donald Palmer I think that there’s a couple of things. I mean, if you look at it from the DMV perspective…when you go in and you get a license or, or register to vote there, you have to provide a lot of documentation. That’s the sort of thing that bureaucracy has needed to identify: How do we make this work for voters? And that would be sort of similar to what the election communities across the country or the states would have to do, is identify how do we make these verifications of citizenship work for a registered voter? And so that is sort of how I look at it. But it’s a little bit of speculation; it’s still going on in the Congress. But I think that when I look at how different laws have been implemented, that is the role that the election community would have to take. The verification of citizenship is important. And I think there’s ways to do that through increased databases and verification procedures that could mitigate the requirement for documentation.

Terry Gerton When you look ahead to the general elections in the fall of 2026, what should voters expect to see then when they go to their polling place, if they go in person, both in terms of improvements to election administration and safeguards that are already in place to make sure their vote is counted as cast?

Donald Palmer Well, I think it’s going to be pretty much the same, what they’ll see. They’ll probably have the opportunity to vote on a tabulator with a paper ballot. I do think some of the changes may actually be behind the scenes. For example, they may have new registration databases that are ongoing to help make the process more accurate. They may have a new version of the EAC-certified 2.0 system. We’re constantly upgrading the technology and the voting systems. Each locality in the Commonwealth of Virginia may have a different version of a voting system. You may have one manufacturer and then over in Alexandria, there may be a different manufacturer that provides services. So some of those changes will be behind the scenes. You may not be, as a voter, aware of them, but pretty much your experience will be the same. You’ll come to a polling place, make sure you identify where you need to vote and make sure you’re properly registered, and it should be a very seamless process. You’ll come in, they’ll make sure they verify who you are and that you’re in the correct polling place, they’ll provide you a ballot and you’ll go vote it, and then you’ll get your sticker and you will be a voter.

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Terry Gerton If voters do have questions about the reliability of the voting process, what’s your number one recommendation? I know what mine is, but I want you to tell me yours.

Donald Palmer Since I know what yours is probably going to be, I’ll do a secondary one. Ask for a bit of a tour of the election office, or the warehouse, to sort of get a sense of how the process behind the scenes works at the locality election office. They’ll give you a tour, I think they’ll explain a lot behind the scene at the central headquarters. But I’ll let you talk about what is probably the first that we agree on, and that is being a poll worker or election worker.

Terry Gerton That is always my first piece of advice. If you have any questions, just volunteer and see how it actually works. Spend a full day doing it with your neighbors. You’ll be convinced that it’s an incredibly reliable system.

Donald Palmer I agree with that, too.

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