By Ann Nordby
KC Jung wants to make sure all eligible voters in King County, Washington, can vote. It seems like a straightforward mission. Since 2016, she has been the language access and outreach coordinator for King County, which includes Seattle.
But in the past few years, election officials across the United States have come under pressure. They face skepticism, harassment, and even direct threats from election doubters.
Jung and her colleagues have received white powder in the mail, seen their names and faces posted online, and received direct threats. Her soft-spoken, humble demeanor hides her resolve.
"The election must go on. You cannot be afraid and stop having elections. We have to prepare for the best. Or the worst," she said.
Jung added that there are now security personnel in her office every day and police posted outside her building, which help her to feel secure at work.
Professional development
To bolster her understanding of election laws and election management, in 2021 Jung enrolled in The Humphrey School's Certificate in Election Administration, (CEA) a 12-credit online program that prepares professionals in the field to respond to the ever-changing landscape of election policy, technology, and security.
Like many election officials, Jung's formal education did not include election administration. Her bachelor's degree was in business.
"I started as a translator," she said. "I wanted to extend my capacity, and this was a good foundation for my next step." She cited a required CEA course, Elections and the Law, as invaluable.
Voter outreach
Participating in the CEA enabled Jung to launch several voter outreach initiatives. In 2022, Washington State passed a law extending the right to vote to all citizens who are not serving felony prison sentences. In other words, people who have been convicted of lesser crimes, even those who are in detention centers, are eligible to vote. However, voting was still impossible for people in jail because King County's elections are by mail only, and it's hard for detainees to receive mail.
Jung developed a program to overcome those barriers for voters in detention centers. She worked with jail wardens and correction officers in facilities across the county, each of which has different rules to follow. It means a lot of legwork.
"I go to detention centers and issue [detainees] their ballots. They can mail them back with prepaid postage. Or corrections officers collect the ballots and drop them into a box just outside the door of the detention center," Jung explained.
The second initiative that Jung launched was the Civic Engagement Internship program, which trains high school seniors and college students to teach younger people about voting. The program targeted seven school districts where voter turnout was lowest.
"We send them to high school civic engagement classes to tell young voters why they should make voting a habit," Jung said. "[The interns] speak the same language, they go to their own schools. The word got out and now we are getting requests from community colleges, too.”
In working with the jail population, Jung said she encountered many people who were homeless. They face huge barriers to voting, not least of which is the lack of a permanent address for registering.
"Only 10 percent of homeless people cast their ballot" in the last election, Jung said. “I want to lower the barrier and give them the access to vote." She is now designing a program to address the problem. "My ultimate goal is to send out a van that can register voters, issue ballots—whatever is needed in that area."
Building a pipeline
The CEA has two main groups of students, said Lea Chittenden, the administrative director of the program.
The first group is "election officials like KC who want a foundational grounding in elections in a way that's flexible,” Chittenden said. The second group includes “people who might have served as a [volunteer] election judge or temporary election worker, and want more knowledge to begin working in the field."
"We are creating a pipeline of knowledgeable election administrators, and we are the only program that is creating a pathway for people who are new to the field.”
So far, that pipeline has 53 graduates from 20 states. Each year, between 100 and 120 students take at least one CEA course. Some of them are certificate seekers and others are University of Minnesota students pursuing degrees in public policy or other majors.
Chittenden and Jung both spoke in glowing terms about CEA's distinguished faculty. All of the teaching staff have deep experience in elections, serving as election officials or advisors on election issues, and many now advise governments on how to run their elections. "We have the top practitioners in the field," Chittenden said.
Even without recent pressures, the need for the CEA is clear. Elections officials face a complex, changing patchwork of federal, state, and county rules. Each jurisdiction has its own systems for distributing and collecting ballots, elections technology, staffing, geographic barriers, and many other wrinkles.
"The CEA gave me confidence because I now know the foundation or structure of how elections are operated, and I can adapt it to our county's laws," said Jung. She noted that King County is preparing to introduce ranked choice voting, and because of the preparation she received in the CEA program, "I already know how that is going to work."
Learn more about the CEA application process. The spring application deadline is January 5, 2025.
