This course focuses on analyzing and charting the major subsystems that make up the
electoral process to identify relationships, clarify responsibilities, and promote control.

This course focuses on identifying and assessing individual management and
leadership styles and applying techniques in the public sector.

This course provides the knowledge and skills required for effective strategic planning
and contemporary public sector budget techniques.

This course focuses on the how to prepare for and adapt to the changing environment of elections, especially emergent and unexpected situations.

This course provides a basic investigation of primary ethical theories and argumentative methods applied to election administration.

This course provides the skills and principles of public relations and communication important to effective representation of election/registration departments and offices.

This course explains who votes, who doesn’t vote, and why, and provides tools to measure participation in the electoral process.

The course works with the actions taken to implement policy such as a new one-time project, a new continuous program, or a change to an existing program.

This course focuses on developments in federal law and regulation of the conduct of elections from the 1965 Voting Rights Act to the present day.

This course focuses on the national and state constitutional foundations of election law and on key judicial interpretations which establish the modern foundation of election administration. The time period of the course is early America to 1965 with a focus on state and US Constitutions.

This course traces the history of elections and electoral participation across two millennia from ancient Athens and Rome through the medieval Italian city-states to England, and consequently the American Colonies.

This course covers the history of elections and voter registration from the American Colonial Period until the Civil Rights Era.

This course examines the stages of public policymaking and how elections officials are affected, and can affect, the policy process.

This course examines the elements that contribute to crisis and effective decision-making strategies that can mitigate risk and damage and contribute to successful resolution.

Administration and Voter Registration This course examines best practices in adult learning and training techniques appropriate for the various training situations common to election administration and voter registration.

This course focuses on public sector procurement processes, the role of election officials, and the factors that contribute to successful procurement decisions.

This course provides an overview of electoral systems around the world and the implications of system differences on political participation and public administration.

This course focuses on skills in active listening, communication, and conflict resolution needed in the public environment of election administration and voter registration in order to cope with competing demands and pressures from a wide variety of stakeholders.

This course focuses on analysis of constitutional requirements and prohibitions applied to federal and state statutes, with particular attention to recent interpretations of state and federal law.

This course focuses on major trends in American federalism, state political culture, and government accountability since the 1960s and their effect on election administration.

This course examines the public questions raised post 2000 about the integrity of the elections process and the administration of elections through old and new forms of media.

This course examines the basic principles of benchmarking in public administration as a method of improving organizational efficiency and accountability for public offices.

The course examines methods and designs for researching the field of Election Administration.

This course covers the development of contemporary American election administration from the historic moments of the 1960s to the present day with a focus on advances in participation and professionalism.

This course examines the history of women’s suffrage in America and in a comparative perspective. Issues include the place of women’s suffrage in respect to other suffrage movements, the development of suffrage in other countries, and the effects of women’s suffrage in the US.

This course explores the resources needed to establish the cost of elections and registration including office operating, capital, and equipment budgets. It will also cover resource requests from a budget official’s perspective, the allocation of costs, lease/purchase, and permanent/temporary staffing decisions.

This course teaches techniques of performance measurement and process analysis which participants use to analyze examples from the field in the areas of voter registration, ballot processing, and voter processing.

This course presents a structured process for managing successful organizational change in election administration and voter registration offices. Participants work with actual proposals from the field to design and evaluate change management.

Gathering information for helping election officials. Examine how surveys, focus groups, and polling are conducted. Gain experience reading and writing questions for data collection. Gain experience interpreting results. Understand strengths and weaknesses of these approaches. Includes understanding the methods, learning practical applications, and how they can be used to improve your work.

All the votes are in and accounted for, and official election results have been released. Even though the election may be “over,” the work of election officials and voter registrars is not! It is essential to conduct analysis of activities across the election system, and to establish systematic feedback about successes, challenges, and solutions. In this course, election administrators and voter registrars will practice a systemwide assessment approach which includes identifying weaknesses in administrative processes and procedures, evaluating instructions, and assessing voter success in casting ballots to reduce voter error, place-based and mail operations, and assessing election day and early voting. Results can be used for continuous performance improvement and to educate different audiences and stakeholders including the general public, funding authorities, policy makers, advocacy groups and the media.

Effective use of information about operations and finances. Know and understand storytelling elements, learn rationale for policy stories, and improve ability to choose information about operation and finances and visualize it. Practice different forms of storytelling. Identify methods of improving stakeholder understanding of operating problems and the intricacies and cost of solutions. Try out several methods of visualization. Identify pros and cons to both and be able to make an informed decision.

With the release of the 2020 Census, election jurisdictions all across the country will be affected by changing boundaries as the redistricting process begins again. This course traces the concepts and principles used in redistricting in general and analyzes how the current gerrymandering landscape has developed. Election officials will learn how 6 these principles affect their work, and ways in which they can contribute to the redistricting process to the benefit of voters and their operations.

Jurisdictions around the United States have adopted alternatives to traditional electoral systems in order to address such issues as racial diversity, partisan gerrymandering, plurality winners, and negative campaigning. Course 33 will describe several systems, including: cumulative voting, limited voting, top-two primaries, and ranked choice voting (RCV). Focusing on RCV, the most widely used of the alternatives, we will examine rationales for adoption, steps for implementation, and experiences of selected cases.

This course explores the changes and the public conversation about elections, their integrity, and the people who work in them. Current topics include public trust and the effectiveness of messages from election officials about their work.

This course focuses on recent developments in election practices, policy, and law. Current topics include the role of philanthropy and recent decisions of the US Supreme Court.

This renewal course is typically offered every other year and reviews recent and important changes in the election law landscape, focusing on new decisions that impact the conduct of election administration.

This course provides an in-depth approach to new ways to understand and develop management and leadership in election offices. Co-taught by faculty and election officials, this course takes a hands-on approach to leadership development.

This course focuses on these three key ideas that election administrations/administrators face in society: 1. why Americans (and their politicians) 7 are so partisan, 2. the effects of that partisanship on legislation, and 3. effective strategies for mitigating it.

This course focuses on the ways in which public opinion reacts to and influences politics, campaigning, candidates, and Public Administration (noting that Election Administration is a subset of Public Administration). Political scientist VO Key defined public opinion as “those opinions held by private persons which governments find it prudent to heed.” How do we measure opinions held by private persons? And why are these opinions prudent to heed?

This course focuses on assessing and developing organizational capacity and resilience for election offices across the country. We start with an examination of what organizational capacity entails for public offices generally and how it has historically been measured, and then engage in a deeper examination of the specific capacity concerns for election offices. The course then lifts up evidence-based strategies for capacity building, and participants will apply these strategies to planning for their own offices. Connected to capacity are the concepts of resilience and stewardship; these specific concerns are then addressed in a stand-alone module. Finally, participants will discuss field capacity overall and how to collectively engage in strengthening US elections as a ‘whole of nation’ concern.