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Election Management Guidelines
The Election Management Guidelines and the Quick Start guides were created to assist state and local election officials effectively manage and administer elections. These guidelines complement the voluntary voting system guidelines' technical standards for voting equipment. For more information about these guides or to request copies, contact EAC at 866-747-1471. NOTE: These resources are available at no cost.
Training Videos
Go here to view training videos about polling place management, polling place accessibility and contingency planning. These videos were based upon the EAC's Election Management Guidelines program.
Election Management Guidelines
Download the entire Election Management Guidelines report, or specific chapters by clicking on the links below.
Chapters 1-3: Certification, System Security, and Physical Security
Chapter 6:Pre-election and Parallel Testing
Chapter 7:Absentee Voting and Vote by Mail
Chapter 8 : Uniformed and Overseas Citizens
Chapter 9: Polling Place and Vote Center Management
Chapter 10: Developing an Audit Trail
Chapter 11: Contingency Planning and Change Management
Quick Start Guides
- Serving Voters in Long Term Care Facilities
- Provisional Ballots
- Canvassing and Certifying an Election
- Conducting a Recount
- Central Count Optical Scan Ballots
- Uniformed and Overseas Voters
- Developing an Audit Trail
- Polling Places and Vote Centers
- Managing Change in an Election Office
- Media and Public Relations
- Contingency and Disaster Planning
- Absentee Voting and Vote by Mail
- Acceptance Testing
- Voting System Certification ( August 2007 )
- Voting System Security
- Poll Workers
- Ballot Preparation/Printing and Pre-Election Testing
- New Voting Systems
- EAC Letter to Election Officials on Quick Start Guides
Publications from the former FEC Office of Election Administration
The EMG Program is pleased to make available the following publications from the former FEC Office of Election Administration. While most of the information contained in these publications precedes the passage of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, readers can still find information that is relevant to the effective administration of elections today. They also help provide a historical framework to current practices and understanding of how the electoral system has evolved from 1979 to today.
EAC posted these reports and studies as part of its clearinghouse function. EAC did not review the information for quality and does not endorse the reports and studies.
NOTE: The functions and responsibilities of the former FEC Office of Election Administration were transferred to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) upon the establishment of EAC according to the provisions of the Help America Vote Act of 2002.
Innovations in Election Administration - The purpose of this series was to acquaint State and local election officials with innovative election procedures and technologies that had been successfully implemented by their colleagues around the country at that time.
Election Administration - This four-volume series on election administration was designed as a set of engineering manuals for election officials. They describe the basic elements of the election machinery and offer standard and fairly uniform techniques for planning, managing, and costing out election functions.
PDF documents require Acrobat Reader, available for free at Adobe's website [http://www.adobe.com/].