The Column: June 2026
Welcome to The Column, a monthly newsletter from the Pillars of the Community team. Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, we will provide monthly updates on how Pillars across the country are examining the election process, building trust in the system, and getting their networks involved.
Our travels to meet with Pillars and election officials, and to bring them together for roundtable discussions and facilities tours, continues. This month, we report on our most recent trip to Nevada. This week we will be headed to North Carolina.
We have been delighted with the level of engagement we have encountered. These monthly newsletters will feature accounts of these events, as well as accounts of our Pillars reporting this to their communities and networks of which they are such an important part. As long as we have worked in the election field—which is a long time—we also are learning a great deal, too, in these discussions.
We are seeing that the topics discussed at our events are often informed by developments in other states. For example, we have heard a great deal recently about the questions raised by the prolonged vote count in the California primary. California has adopted a “postmark rule,” which permits ballots postmarked no later than Election Day to be counted up to 7 days thereafter. This is a policy choice that 14 states have made but with different periods allowed for the post-election count of ballots that meet the postmarking deadline.
In a state the size of California, this rule means a lengthy period before all the ballots are counted. It presents a very good example of the difference between legitimate disagreements over policy—the postmark rule—and suspicions that a long count of this kind indicates some sort of irregularity. One goal in all of our conversations is to enable disagreements about policy to be fully aired, while clarifying the difference between disagreements over policies adopted through the legislative or regulatory process that the losing side does not like and unfounded doubts about the accuracy of the results that one side does not like.
Finally, we are pleased to be able to continue providing the opportunity for the Pillars to meet with and question key election officials, as in a recent video interview with Blake Evans, Georgia’s Director of Elections. Blake describes in important detail the painstaking work that goes into preparing for his state’s elections and enforcing the safeguards integrated into the process that are the key to public confidence.
Thank you for all you do, and please send us any suggestions for topics to be covered in this newsletter.
INSIDE ELECTIONS
During a recent roundtable discussion with Georgia election officials, Blake Evans, Elections Director for the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, shared that Georgia’s recent audit of its primary elections showed that the state’s May 19 primary election was almost entirely accurate. After analyzing more than 2 million ballots, they found only 159 discrepancies, meaning the primary election was 99.99% accurate.
We sat down with Blake to learn more about what the audit results mean, why Georgians should feel confident in their elections, and how the Secretary of State’s office is planning for future elections as a result of new legislation passed by the General Assembly in June.
Bob Bauer in conversation with Blake Evans.
ARIZONA: FACILITY TOUR
This month, Maricopa County Elections Director Scott Jarrett hosted 15 Arizona Pillars of the Community for a Q&A and tour of the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center. Pillars got a behind the scenes look at ballot collection and tabulation and learned about the safeguards in place throughout the election process.
PILLARS IN THE MEDIA
Following last month’s Wisconsin Election Education Event, Wisconsin Pillar and columnist Tom Still penned a piece highlighting the safeguards in place around Wisconsin’s election system. Building on what he learned from municipal, county and state election officials, Tom offered a clear summary of Wisconsin’s election process and shared his own commentary on why Wisconsin’s unique, highly localized election system is safe and reliable:
“While no system is perfect, the decentralized administration of all elections in Wisconsin comes with multiple checks and balances – mainly because much of the work is done by ordinary people in cities, counties, villages and towns. These supervised poll workers are largely volunteers accountable to their own communities.”
In Georgia, Charlie Harper, longtime political columnist, joined our roundtable conversation with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Elections Director for the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office Blake Evans. Inspired by the conversation and Georgia’s successful post-election audit, Charlie wrote a column titled “Georgia’s Voting Machine Controversy Isn’t One At All.” Find an excerpt and a link to the full piece below.
“A portion of each race is verified after every election to ensure what is printed on a ballot matches the count from the machines. If necessary, however, a theoretical hand count of all ballots cast is possible, because of the computer generated paper ballots. A reversion to hand marked paper ballots won’t make this system more secure. Quite the contrary. It takes the digital record captured at each polling place out of the equation, and makes the integrity of the election solely reliant on the physical security of paper ballots.”
CONTACT US
Do you have a question about the Pillars of the Community program? Are there any questions that you have about the election process that you’re particularly interested in? Would you like to add a friend or colleague to our mailing list? Send us an email at [email protected].