What do you think election administration will look like in 250 years?

If you’re like me, trying to think that far ahead into the future might give you a headache. Maybe you imagine voting from home through a high-tech neural interface. Perhaps you picture a polling place on Pluto or ballot boxes in orbit.

It’s quite silly when we let our imagination run wild. Most predictions humans make about the future often turn out to be fantastical and overly utopian in hindsight.

We may never know what election administration will look like in 2276. But if we shift our focus from the next 250 years to the next generation, the future suddenly becomes much easier to imagine.

We often talk about “the next generation” of products, technology, and best practices. But before imagining the next generation of election administration, it’s worth thinking about the next generation of voters.

Here’s something that’ll make you feel old:

In just a few years, the eldest of Gen Alpha will start voting.

I was born in 2004 and it makes me feel ancient to say out loud.

Gen Alpha, or Generation Alpha, isn’t even the youngest one, as last year marked the introduction of Generation Beta.

But, what does that have to do with election administration?

When we discuss the best practices of future election administrators, a common point of advice to governments is that information should be readily accessible, especially as it pertains to election-related information. Voter registration dates, election results, campaign finance information, and all public data should, of course, be easy to find.

 

But what do we mean by “easy to find?” It’s one of the easiest things in the world, perhaps, to belt out platitudes about “what election offices can do better.” In fact, telling anyone anywhere in any field of work “what to do,” is possibly the easiest thing anyone else can do. Telling them how to do it is a different matter entirely.

Difficulty in anything may be one of the most subjective experiences imaginable. Information that might be easily accessible for experienced users may be completely out of reach for others.

So, what makes a good metric for making a user experience easy? I’m no expert, but I’d argue that at the heart of a truly accessible, public-facing interface is a simple question:

“Could a high schooler use this?”

Now, this is why I am specifically referring to public-facing sites. Public data is packed with complex and highly specific systems of internal filings and reports that, for the foreseeable future, will remain complex and highly specific. When we discuss “accessibility,” we are of course referring to information that is publicly available just as any other public resource.

One hard truth is that the world is full of mistrust and suspicion. I’d reason that most of us who work in elections know this all too well. People don’t always trust one another, and it’s as simple as that! Our instincts and aversions that stem from trust are one of the most reliable things that have made us human since time immemorial.

I also think that, among many others, one of the best ways to bridge political divides in the United States is to remind ourselves of another truth that is well-backed by studies and extensive research: We all want what’s best for our kids.

It bears repeating that our children really are the future.

Don’t have kids yourself? Yeah, me neither.

Nonetheless, the maxim rings just as true, and I think that when we start there, we can really begin to make great progress in evaluating what we want the world to look like years, decades, or even centuries from now. Studies additionally demonstrate that Americans don’t just want what’s “best,” for kids in school today, but that they want their children to be civically educated.

A mistrust of strangers and things we don’t recognize is one of our more innate components that makes us human, and it isn’t necessarily a bad thing either. Suspicion in the right place can save our lives, but it isn’t what defines us – no single part of life does. However, one of the more beautiful things that helps make us uniquely human is our sense of a deeper, moral obligation to future generations.

We may never know exactly what election administration will look like in 2276. But we do know who the next generation of voters will be. By designing election information that is intuitive, transparent, and accessible today, election offices can begin preparing for tomorrow.

At Civera, we’re proud to support that work by helping election offices make public election information easier to access, search, and understand. As America looks toward its next 250 years, we’re excited to help build tools that serve not only today’s voters, but the generations that follow.