Overtime, chaotic early voting, and preparing for municipal elections: An election director shares his story

• Jordan Wilkie/WITF
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  As the democracy reporter for WITF, I will cover any kind of story that has to do with how we govern ourselves. That will include doing a lot of election coverage about how to access the ballot, how public officials administer elections, the technology used to run and secure elections, and the laws that govern it all.
  
  My work will also include accountability coverage for elected officials that use their positions to then undermine democratic institutions, like the legislators that voted against the certification of the presidential election results on January 6, 2021. If that weren’t enough, I foresee covering some local government decisions, fights over public records and transparency, and some candidate coverage in 2024. Many stories can have a “democracy frame” meant to help us all understand how our governments work and how we can shape them.
  
  I’m most looking forward to the community reporting about which WITF is passionate. I’ll be talking to a lot of folks about what they want out of their governments, local to national, and how they want to make their visions reality. I’m excited to meet you and talk, with or without a microphone on hand.
  
  I also like to turn my work phone off. When I do that, I’m looking for rocks to climb, trails to run on (slower and slower, somehow), and new places to visit. I’ve lived in the (extended) South for most of my life, so y’all will hear me say things funny and sometimes my hearing is funny, too, so we’ll figure out this radio thing together.

 Sean Drasher, Lebanon County

Sean Drasher got his start in elections by winning one of his own, to be a Majority Inspector at his local precinct. He worked his way up to become the county's election director, serving 92,000 registered voters.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated Lebanon County Election Director Sean Drasher’s first elections job. Drasher was initially elected to Majority Inspector and later became his precinct’s Judge of Elections.

Sean Drasher started his career in election administration by winning … an election. 

Ten years ago, he wrote his name in as a candidate for his precinct’s Majority Inspector, and won. He worked his way up to become Lebanon County’s elections director, serving 92,000 registered voters.

On December 19, Drasher spoke with WITF about what it took to run the 2024 presidential election and what comes next for voters. Here is a lightly edited excerpt of the conversation.

Interview 

Jordan: Have you already forgotten the pain of how much you worked during the 2024 election, or are you thinking back on it fondly? 

Sean Drasher: Mostly fondly. Like, I like the adrenaline rush of it, but the bulk of the overtime was the four weeks before the election. That was just madness. 

Jordan: And you’re thinking back fondly on the adrenaline of trying to get it all done?

Sean Drasher: Yes. Yeah. It’s a thrill. 

Jordan: Yeah. And your staff?

Sean Drasher: Not so much, not so much. If you go down a notch size wise from where we are, you get into counties that might have two employees doing all this or one person doing all that, where they’re managing all the voter rolls and they’re setting up all the equipment.

I don’t know how those people sleep. I don’t know how they do their jobs. I really don’t. It’s crazy. It’s an overwhelming amount of work. And I don’t know how counties, with what they’re able to pay, are able to keep those staff. They must be as patriotic as they come, doing it for some higher calling.

Jordan: What’s an unexpected win that you had through the election period? 

Sean Drasher: Great win. Ten percent of all of our poll workers are students, and I could not be happier with that. The poll workers absolutely love them. The public loved seeing them there. They were tickled. Every single one of them showed up and stayed and it worked very well.

Jordan: On the other hand, what was a challenge from the election? 

Sean Drasher: Early voting in Pennsylvania; it’s a clumsy process. The political parties push it and use the language that they use in other states, so the voters show up ready to vote and they want to be in and out. 

But how it works here, they could be at a location in any county for hours waiting to vote. I feel terrible that the system isn’t better. It reflects poorly on us as a county. It looks like maybe we’re not prepared or we’re not trained, we’re not doing something. None of those things are true. 

So when you have hundreds of people all at the same time waiting to vote, that line stretches out our office way down the hall. We’re just not physically equipped to handle crowds like that.

I still have an election to run. We aren’t just here just to do early voting. We’re here to set up the entire election, and that all has to be continuing to go on while all those poor people are waiting in line.

Jordan: What election is coming up this year? What’s the next thing we are looking at? 

Sean Drasher: We’re already weeks into planning and setting up the next election, which is the municipal election. There’s a lot of local offices, very important offices, and those people are on the primary ballot on May 20th. 

Jordan: If it’s on May 20th, why are you already working on it? Why are you already weeks into planning that? 

Sean Drasher: This is the election that, from an election office perspective, is the most complicated. In any given county, you’re going to have hundreds and hundreds of people on the ballot. Hundreds. 

And a lot of those people have never run for office before. They don’t know how the paperwork works. We have to manage all that. We set things up months in advance to make sure we have everything in place. 

Jordan: What else do you want people to know about the local elections?

Sean Drasher: If somebody wants to run for office this year. There are so, so many different offices that you could run for. If you just want to get civically involved and you’re not locked in on, “This is the job I want,” there is something for you. 

You have to decide in January if you want to do it. So when February rolls around, you can go to your local elections office and get your paperwork. From there, it’s super easy to fill it out. It’s a super low bar for what you have to get done to sign up to get on the ballot. These little elected offices, even the ones that you don’t get paid for, or you only do a couple of days a year, they can lead somewhere.

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