Podcast: Election officials talk shop

Key Takeaways

In late 2020, Brianna Lennon and Eric Fey were commiserating that because of the COVID-19 pandemic, throughout one of the most technically challenging elections in American history, election officials weren’t able to get together to talk about the minutiae in election worker recruitment, ballot design or have the casual conversations that switched on the lightbulbs in their heads.

And that’s when they needed that information exchange the most.

Then Lennon, the Boone County, Mo. clerk, asked her colleagues nationally if they knew of any podcasts for people like them, and within a few months, she and Fey, of the appointed directors of elections for St. Louis County, Mo. were producing their own podcast, titled "High Turnout, Wide Margins."

They recently joined NACo for the inaugural episode of the County News Podcast, to talk about how they combat staffing challenges during election season, what county leaders should know about their election departments and the guests they’ve had a chance to talk to over nearly 100 of their own podcast episodes and more.