Election officials are used to intense scrutiny of their ballot handling and security protocols during an election. But just as important — and sometimes less spoken about — is the period afterward.

“We need to preserve ballots for a 22-month retention period for security and documentation reasons,” explained Polk County, Missouri Clerk Rachel Lightfoot, whose office participated in the development and testing of the Secure Ballot Management standard through the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence.

“The days after the election are just as important because if we get a court order to bring [the ballots] back out and run them through the machine again, they need to be kept intact, away from moisture, ideally with some temperature control,” she added. “They need to be well taken care of for those 22 months.”

Small Office, Smaller Storage Space

Smaller offices often have to make do with the facilities available, and for jurisdictions like Polk County, space is at a premium. When Rachel began her position as County Clerk and surveyed existing procedures, including arrangements for long-term ballot storage, she found “room” for improvement — the designated 22-month holding area for ballots was simply a locked 8×8 office space in an adjacent county building used by the courts, coroner, emergency management and surveyor. While the location of the ballots was not public knowledge, Rachel resolved to find a new space with less day-to-day traffic to better protect the ballots and place the office on firmer ground in case of post-election inquiries or lawsuits.

There was also some cleanup to be done. Rachel recalled that the boxes of ballots were also sharing space with some unlikely items: thousands of law books, an artificial Christmas tree and decorations in a bag, trash cans full of old ballot bags from the 1980s, and giant cardboard cheeseburgers, steaks, and a hamburger sign for Missouri Beef Days.

“And the smell,” Rachel observed dryly. “Old and musty.”

It was time for a change.

Making Do With County Resources

As Rachel searched for new storage space, she kept in mind several new priorities —  “getting the ballots organized by election and precinct, making sure destruction dates were clear, making sure everything was identified appropriately.” She also decided to transition away from cardboard boxes, whose seals could be more easily broken.

Rachel did have a secure vault in her office to store ballots during elections, accessible by a locked door with a number code and ringed by two-foot-thick concrete walls. But she also needed it to store files from every realm of her work as County Clerk: commission minutes, county maps, birth and death records, as well as all documentation from her role as the county’s budget officer. With extra space in short supply, she looked at the options she did have. “Knowing what I was given and what I had, I asked how I could do better and make that better,” she said.

As it turned out, the readiest available space turned out to be across town in another county department that was already the storage site for actual election equipment (tabulators, ADA machines, portable voting booths, and so on). Within the secure complex of multiple buildings and mechanic shops, in a 30×15 room next to the foreman’s office, Rachel found her new storage space — and what others had been stashing in it.

“We found old empty cardboard boxes, old metal ballot boxes, and lots of old COVID stuff — sanitizer, masks, gloves, Plexiglass shields,” Rachel recalled. Once again, she grabbed trash bags and a broom.

Then she went shopping.

Overhauling Long-Term Storage Options

Rachel purchased several storage racks to roll into her newly-tidied space, then retired cardboard boxes entirely, bringing in roomier, reusable clear storage tubs, bigger stickers for better identification, and specific labels for individual precincts. For added security, she added zipties to the tub handles. “I can walk in, look at those storage bins, and if I don’t see a ziptie, I know it was messed with,” she said.

Rachel also reorganized the county’s permanent election records (official results and sample ballot copies, as well as past poll worker assignments). As the coda to her reorganization project, she ensured those files were saved in her office and organized  by date. “I’ll eventually get to where we can scan and digitize all that,” she said.

Everything was now in its right place. Best of all, rather than a locked door off a high-traffic hallway, Polk’s long-term ballots now lived behind a locked door, in a locked building, behind a locked gate, behind a security fence.

Sometimes, achieving election excellence is about recognizing a problem behind closed doors, often one that others have been too overworked and under-resourced to tackle. Sometimes, it’s as straightforward as making a few calls, taking a drive to the Container Store, and grabbing a dustpan and broom.

Secure Ballot Management is one of the Standards for Election Excellence currently available for certification through the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence. Learn more about the Standards and apply for certification today — certification is now open to election departments across the country.