To assist election officials in creating and putting together materials about a wide variety of topics that affect their operations, education, and outreach, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission aims to provide toolkits that can be used by elections offices. Providing these resources is important to assist election officials with their outreach. Many of the resources in the toolkits listed below are customizable to various degrees, depending on what the elections office needs. Below are the compiled toolkits.
Check back for upcoming toolkits.
Election Official Toolkit: Using Google Maps to Display Election Information
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology is a valuable tool for election officials but often requires a large investment, and dedicated and trained staff to develop and maintain real-time updated maps. This EAC toolkit walks election officials through using Google Maps as an option to show different data sets on online maps and how to update the information on a regular basis.
National Poll Worker Recruitment Day Toolkit
The EAC has created a toolkit to help election officials with poll worker recruitment. This toolkit is accompanied with various customizable graphics (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter/X, and Instagram), sample social media text, trending hashtags, and more!
AI Toolkit
(August 2023)
Like any technology, AI tools are used for a variety of purposes—good, bad, and neutral. The purpose of this document is to provide election officials with a general understanding of AI tools, and the opportunities and threats that they create for effective election administration. The AI Handout Template (Canva log-in required) is available for election officials to create a printed handout that can be distributed at offices, libraries, and events to direct voters to official sources of important election information.
This document includes:
- An overview of existing AI tools;
- A Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis of these tools in the field of election administration;
- Communications Tips and Best Practices for Navigating AI-generated Content;
- A handout template that election officials can use to direct voters and constituents to verifiable sources of accurate information.
Communications 101 Toolkit
(July 2023)
The Communications 101 Guide and it accompanying materials are intended to help election offices successfully communicate with the public, and plan for challenges that may arise throughout their work. This includes an in-depth guide, a toolkit, social media graphics and calendar, and sample press releases.
Secure Elections Toolkit
(June 2023)
The Secure Elections Toolkit, and its accompanying materials, are intended to assist election officials when informing candidates, policy makers, media, stakeholders, and the public of the multi-layered approach used to secure elections. This includes how to share information about election security in their jurisdictions and components of the EAC Testing and Certification program. Download customizable social media graphics via Canva.com.
Protecting U.S. Elections: A CISA Cybersecurity Toolkit
(August 10, 2022)
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released this toolkit as a one-stop catalog of free services and tools available for state and local election officials to improve the cybersecurity and resilience of their infrastructure. As the lead federal agency responsible for election security, CISA regularly works with state and local election officials to secure their systems and offers a number of services, information products, and other resources. This toolkit was developed through CISA’s Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC), which worked with private and public sector organizations, including in the election community, and JCDC alliance members – to compile these free resources. The toolkit is organized into broad categories designed to help election officials:
- Assess their risk using an Election Security Risk Profile Tool developed by CISA and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission;
- Find tools related to protecting voter information, websites, email systems, and networks; and
- Protect assets against phishing, ransomware, and distributed denial-of-services (DDoS) attacks.
Help America Vote Day (August 16, 2022)
A toolkit with graphics, draft social media content, and other information is available for election officials to use to recruit poll workers and participate in Help America Vote Day. We understand many state and local election offices have their own forms and online information for the recruitment of poll workers. Feel free to use your jurisdiction’s direct links and customize the graphics as you share information on August 16th.
Communicating Election and Post-Election Processes Toolkit
This toolkit can be used to create educational materials about pre- and post-election processes that observers and the public can understand. Election officials in any size jurisdiction can adapt this toolkit to fit their observer and voter education needs.
Best Practices: FAQs for Election Officials
One of the best ways to educate the public is for election officials to proactively and consistently provide accurate and timely information to voters. The purpose of this toolkit is to provide election officials with messaging guidance, infographic facts sheets, social media graphics, social media text, and example FAQs, that can easily be shared on websites and social media platforms to inform voters about important election procedures.
Poll Worker Recruitment and National Poll Worker Recruitment Day Toolkit
The EAC has compiled a variety of resources election officials can use as they recruit poll workers and plan for Election Day including social media graphics, videos, and more. If you have materials you would like added to these resources please email [email protected].