October 23, 2025
Fostering Resilient Elections
A new report from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, Fostering Resilient Elections: Opportunities for Stronger Election Administration and Emergency Management Collaboration, highlights how election officials and emergency managers can build stronger partnerships to safeguard elections in the face of disruption.
The report draws on extensive conversations with dozens of election officials and emergency managers from across the country. The perspectives shared come from officials who have managed elections and emergency response through hurricanes, wildfires, winter storms and security incidents.
Their collective experience underscores that collaboration between elections and emergency management is essential, but remains uneven across jurisdictions.
In some communities, election officials and emergency managers know each other well and maintain well-tested plans for navigating crises. In others, officials are still “trading business cards in the middle of a hurricane,” forced to improvise relationships and coordination at the worst possible moment.
This report argues that proactive engagement – building ties before an emergency strikes – can save time, reduce confusion, and protect both voters and the integrity of an election.
This post is an excerpt from In Focus This Week from electionline! For the full story from TJ Pyche and his co-authors, visit https://electionline.org/electionline-weekly/2025/10-23/