County Leads Program
County Leads Program
The Chamberlain Network’s County Leads Program is designed to maintain a trained, geographically distributed network of trusted veteran volunteers who can provide reliable local situational awareness and disciplined civic coordination when significant events threaten the lawful, safe, and orderly administration, completion, or acceptance of free and fair elections.
American elections are decentralized and administered primarily through state and local institutions. Most elections, including the problems that inevitably arise during them, are managed through established legal and administrative processes.
Nonetheless, election periods can also produce unusual or serious developments that require rapid assessment. Such developments may arise from public or private actors and may involve disruption of voting or election administration; intimidation or threats; interference with counting, canvassing, or certification; significant misinformation concerning voting or results; misuse or threatened misuse of governmental authority; cyber or physical disruption; or other extraordinary events affecting the ability of established institutions to administer and complete an election according to law.
For national civic organizations, one challenge during such an event is situational awareness.
Initial reports may be incomplete, exaggerated, contradictory, or based on misunderstanding of ordinary election processes. Information circulating online may move significantly faster than official verification. National staff may lack relationships or firsthand visibility in the affected jurisdiction. At the same time, an incident that is genuinely serious may require rapid involvement by counsel, communications personnel, election-protection organizations, safety experts, public officials, or organizational leadership.
The County Leads Program is intended to fill that gap.
The program would create a disciplined mechanism through which we can answer five questions during a fast-moving election-related development:
What is actually happening?
What information is verified, and what remains uncertain?
Is the development routine, localized, or potentially serious?
Who possesses the expertise or lawful authority to address it?
What, if anything, should organizations do in response?
Become A County Lead
County Leads are trained, nonpartisan civic liaisons who:
Maintain local situational awareness
Direct people toward verified election information and appropriate resources
Receive and document relevant reports
Escalate significant developments through a designated response system.
County Leads may also, when specifically authorized, support organizational communications and other limited civic-response activities.
County Leads do not:
Independently investigate alleged election misconduct
Interpret election law for voters
Interfere with election administration
Challenge voter eligibility
Direct election officials, perform security functions
Represent themselves as government officials
Veteran status does not confer special authority in the election process. Rather, the program draws upon existing national networks of veterans and partner organizations’ civic missions to establish a geographically dispersed group of volunteers committed to disciplined, peaceful, nonpartisan engagement.
Do you want to get involved in our election work?
Sign Up Today