Most clerks running this November’s midterms know election procedure cold. That’s not what trips offices up. What tends to cause real disruption isn’t unfamiliarity with the process; it’s the handful of common problems that show up almost every cycle, somewhere, and catch a specific office off guard because it hadn’t rehearsed that particular scenario recently. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) have both spent years cataloguing these, and the same handful of issues keep appearing.
With Election Day close, this is a good moment for a quick refresher rather than a deep dive: what tends to go wrong, and what established contingency guidance recommends doing about it. (If your office is still mapping out the broader deadline calendar, we’ve covered that ground separately. This post is narrower, focused on the day-of failure points.)
Power outages at polling places
This is one of the most common disruptions on record — a 2020 storm-related outage in Bibb County, Alabama famously had poll workers processing voters by flashlight. NASS’s Task Force report on election emergencies lists power outage procedures as a standard part of contingency planning: evaluating each polling place’s power needs in advance, and having access to (and a plan to procure) backup power sources like generators.
The core fallback, per EAC guidance: know in advance how your office would shift to a paper ballot and poll book process if equipment goes dark, and know who to call to get backup power on site quickly.
Poll workers who don’t show up
Absences happen — illness, family emergencies, last-minute conflicts. The EAC’s contingency planning guide frames this directly as a named threat with a named goal: ensure polling places stay fully staffed throughout the day, even when someone doesn’t turn up.
The common fix across jurisdictions is a standby pool — a group of trained poll workers who report to the central election office on Election Day rather than a specific location, ready to be deployed wherever a gap opens up. Cross-training backups for each role ahead of time means one absence doesn’t cascade into a bigger problem.
Running short on ballots or supplies
Running low on ballots, forms, or other supplies is disruptive but manageable if the backup process is already in place. Guidance from the EAC recommends designating a specific person (sometimes called a troubleshooter) responsible for recognizing a shortage early and knowing exactly how to access backup supply — rather than everyone realizing at once and improvising a fix mid-morning.
Phone or communication system failures
If your office’s phone or network system goes down, both poll workers and voters lose a line to the people who can help them. NASS’s Task Force report treats this as its own contingency category, distinct from power failure — plans should include pre-identified contacts for key staff, emergency management, law enforcement, and other responders, decided in advance rather than assembled after something’s already gone wrong. Some states have taken it further: Tennessee, for one, built a dedicated text-and-email broadcast system for rapid statewide updates during an emergency.
Needing to relocate or consolidate a polling place
Sometimes the location itself becomes the problem — a building becomes inaccessible, or an emergency forces a last-minute move. The EAC’s guidance is specific here: maintain a running list of alternative locations within the jurisdiction, along with a contact person for each, and have a plan ready to notify both voters and media the moment a change happens — through the office website, an automated phone system, and direct outreach to the old location.
The common thread
None of these are exotic scenarios. They show up, in some form, in nearly every cycle’s after-action reports, which is exactly why the EAC and NASS keep publishing the same categories of guidance year after year. The difference between a five-minute disruption and a genuinely bad day usually isn’t the problem itself — it’s whether the response was already decided before it happened.
If your office hasn’t looked at its contingency plan since the last major election, this is a reasonable week to pull it back out, confirm the standby list is current, and make sure everyone on your team knows who to call first when something goes sideways.
Worth pairing with your contingency review: our guide to election worker safety covers a related set of preparations — what to have in place if a polling place situation turns tense rather than just logistically difficult.
This post draws on publicly available EAC and NASS contingency planning resources. It’s general guidance, not a substitute for your jurisdiction’s own emergency procedures or legal counsel.