AI Agents for Local Election Offices: 16% Use AI. 46% Want Rules First.

The 2026 midterms are over for voters. For local election offices, the busiest part of the year is still going. Canvassing, certification, records requests, voter questions, and the mail that follows every election all land on small teams that were stretched thin before the first ballot was cast.

That makes this a good moment to look at what local election officials themselves say about AI, and where AI agents could help without going anywhere near the vote itself.

Local Election Offices Are Small Teams With Huge Workloads

The scale is easy to forget. According to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission's 2024 Election Administration and Voting Survey:

• More than 211 million people were active registered voters in the 2024 general election.
• States sent nearly 40 million confirmation notices as part of keeping voter rolls accurate.
• More than 770,000 poll workers served, most of them over 61.
• 47.9% of jurisdictions reported significant challenges recruiting and retaining poll workers.
• About 30% of ballots were cast by mail, and nearly 40% of jurisdictions used electronic poll books.

All of that is run by thousands of local offices, many with only a handful of staff.

What Election Officials Say About AI

The Brennan Center's Local Election Officials Survey 2026 reached 834 local election officials between January 27 and February 26, 2026. Its AI findings, from the full results:

• 16% report using AI in their work, up from 5% in 2024. The most common uses are drafting social media content and creating graphics.
• 46% want guidance from government agencies about using AI in election administration, up from 31% in 2024.
• 19% have been approached by AI vendors.
• 63% are concerned about AI making their job more difficult or dangerous.
• 74% are concerned about false information online making their job harder or more dangerous.

Read together, that is a careful profession. Adoption is real but small, and offices want rules before they go further.

Budgets and Staff Are the Real Constraint

The same survey shows why the back office is under pressure:

• 80% say their budgets need to grow to keep up with administration and security needs over the next five years.
• 75% have not received extra state or local resources to cover federal cuts to election security services.
• More than 1 in 5 have had a budget request denied.
• Asked where extra money would go, officials most often named wages, hiring poll workers, and voting equipment.
• 32% report threats, harassment or abuse because of their job.

When people are this scarce, every hour spent answering the same question by phone or retyping a records request is an hour taken from security, training and voters.

Where AI Agents Fit, and Where They Must Not

The line here has to be bright. AI agents should never count, tabulate, adjudicate ballots, or decide anyone's eligibility to vote. Those are legal duties that belong to people and certified systems. Over 98% of jurisdictions used voting equipment with a paper ballot or auditable paper record, per the EAC, and nothing about AI should change that.

The opportunity is the administrative work around the election:

• Voter questions. Drafting answers to repeat questions (where is my polling place, did my mail ballot arrive, how do I update my address) from official, approved information, with staff reviewing anything unusual.
• Public records requests. Logging requests, tracking deadlines, finding the right documents and preparing them for staff review.
• Poll worker logistics. Scheduling, reminders, training sign-ups and post-election pay paperwork.
• Canvass and certification checklists. Tracking which tasks are done, which are waiting, and which deadlines are close.
• Public communication. Drafting social posts and notices, which officials already use AI for, with a person approving every word.

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Guidance First, Then Tools

Almost half of officials want guidance before they use AI more. Offices can set their own basics today:

• Decide what AI may never touch. Ballots, tabulation, eligibility and signature decisions are off the list.
• Require approval for anything public. No AI-drafted message goes out without a named person signing off.
• Keep a record. Know which tools are in use, what data they can see, and who approved each one.
• Be skeptical of cold pitches. With 19% already approached by vendors, ask any vendor what the agent can access and how actions are approved.

Where Workmate Fits

The officials' priorities, more help with less risk, map to how Workmate builds custom AI agents. Each agent is designed around one office's actual workflows and connected only to the systems it needs. Admins control which apps and integrations an agent can reach, and credentials sit in a vault that can require human approval before the agent acts. Each Workmate runs on a separate computer with private file storage, and the platform is SOC 2 Type II audited.

For an election office, that could mean an agent that tracks records-request deadlines and drafts responses for staff review, or one that keeps poll worker scheduling moving, while every decision about voters and ballots stays with the people accountable for it.

What This Means for Election Offices Going Forward

The post-election period is a good time to plan, before the next cycle starts.

• List your repeat tasks from this cycle. The questions you answered 500 times are the first candidates.
• Write your AI rules now. 46% of your peers want guidance; you can set your own.
• Start with work that never touches a ballot. Records requests, scheduling and FAQs are lower risk.
• Keep people in charge of everything public and everything legal.

FAQ

How many election officials use AI? 16% of local election officials reported using AI in their work in the Brennan Center's 2026 survey, up from 5% in 2024.

What do election offices use AI for? Most commonly drafting social media content and creating graphics.

Should AI count votes? No. Counting, tabulation and eligibility decisions belong to people and certified systems. AI agents fit the administrative work around elections.