New from BPC:

The Arizona Fellows in Election Administration was developed and implemented in 2024 by the office of the Secretary of State of Arizona. The program, a recipient of a 2024 Election Assistance Commission Clearinghouse Award, sought to address both current staffing shortages and the field’s long-term recruitment issues by hiring young people to work in election administration during the fall 2024 semester. Most fellows were embedded in a county office to work on election administration, and a few fellows worked in the Secretary of State’s office.

This report evaluates the effectiveness of the fellowship program, with a focus on outcomes related to cultivating interest in careers in election administration and to improving voter outreach. We employed quantitative surveys of fellows and other young Arizonans not in the program (who we call nonfellows), qualitative interviews with fellows and administrators, and participants’ observations of the program….