Administrators of Democracy: Implementing & Innovating in Election Administration

The purpose of the funded project is to understand how election officials (e.g., county clerk, recorder, and/or election director) deliver elections in Intermountain West states. This research is significant to the field of public administration because it expands our understanding of front-line public employees. It is also significant to the emerging field of election administration research because of its focus on the Intermountain West, and rural communities. Finally, this project may prove significant insofar as the majority of election officials in the selected case states present as women, suggesting a new vein of potential research related to representative bureaucracy, gender, and democracy