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Contingency Planning

Helping America Vote

About the Quick Start Guides: The EAC's Quick Start Guides are intended to familiarize local election officials with various topics

they will likely encounter in election administration. The guides are a starting point to identify areas of concern and give officials a

broad idea of factors they should consider in approaching a given topic.

What is Contingency Planning?

Elections are important events that must continue even when faced with extreme challenges. Through

Continuity of Operations Plans (COOP), election officials can plan how critical election operations can

continue under a broad range of circumstances or natural disasters. Having a contingency plan allows

election officials to build resiliency and more quickly recover from emergencies. Contingency plans should

identify critical office functions, identify available resources, and establish an action plan.

Identify Threats

Objectives refer to the specific outcomes that support and help achieve the goal of the contingency plan;

these should be clear, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely.

Sample Objectives:

Maintain operation of the polling location during polling hours. 

Identify the minimum number of staff members needed in each location to maintain operations. 

Hire and deploy an adequate number of poll workers for each polling location.

Develop a wait-list of backup poll workers who are trained and able to fill a last-minute vacancy. 

Create Objectives

Think through the needs of your community and which threats are

most likely to occur.

Consider conducting simulations or tabletop exercises (TTX) to work

through the likely outcomes of emergency scenarios. These

discussions can help validate plans and procedures already in place

or assess unaddressed needs.

Sample Threat: Poll workers do not show up at their assigned

polling place.

The EAC maintains a dedicated

contingency planning webpage that

includes information from the EAC,

contingency planning working groups,

and state and local election officials.

The webpage can be found at

https://www.eac.gov/electionofficials/contingency-planning.

Set Goals

For each identified threat, set a goal or the result you would like a contingency plan to achieve.

Goals should be stated broadly and align with the overall mission of your agency. 

Goals are not about specific emergencies—they are broad statements that should be true about the election

in general.

Sample Goal: Ensure polling places are fully staffed throughout Election Day.

Define the Purpose

The purpose refers to the scope (i.e., parameters, authority) of the contingency plan. It gives the plan a

specific framework in which to operate, giving it focus. For example:

Sample Purpose: Establish procedures to ensure that adequate staff members are present at all polling

locations throughout the day so they can remain in operation during polling hours. 

May 1, 2022 v. 1.0 1 EAC | Helping America Vote

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Action Plan

The action plan consists of action steps that relate directly to a

particular objective.

The plan should also include the staff, budget, time, training,

and resources needed to successfully execute the plan and

achieve the overall goal. 

See Sample Action Plan Below:

Threat: Poll workers do not show up at their assigned polling place.

Goal: Ensure polling places are fully staffed throughout Election Day.

Purpose: Establish procedures to ensure that an adequate number of staff members are present at all

polling locations throughout the day so they can remain in operation during polling hours. 

Objective Action

Steps Timeframe Resources Assessment

Maintain operation

of the polling

location during

polling hours.

At least 15 days

before each

election, create final

polling place

assignments and

assign backup poll

workers.

15 days before

Election Day

Backup poll

workers

Poll Workers

Poll Worker

Database

Staff Time

If a vacancy

occurred, were

backup workers

available and

deployed? 

Identify the

minimum number of

staff members

needed in each

location to maintain

operations.

At least 75 days

before each

election, identify the 

number of poll

workers needed to

staff each polling

location. 

75 days before

Election Day

Backup poll

workers

Poll Workers

Poll Worker

Database

Staff Time

Did each polling

location have a

minimum and

maximum number

of worker positions

assigned? 

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure

Security Agency (CISA) in the U.S.

Department of Homeland Security has

developed a tabletop exercise package

specifically for cybersecurity incident

planning for election officials, and this

resource can be found at

https://www.cisa.gov/publication/electionscyber-tabletop-box

May 1, 2022 v. 1.0 2 EAC | Helping America Vote

eac.gov clearinghouse@eac.gov @EACgov @eacgov1 @us.eac