Effective emergency preparedness draws on the skills and experience of you and your security partners. Meeting as a team helps build a shared understanding of relevant threats and strengthens resilience. In our last two issues, we suggested identifying your team, assets, and resources. Now you’re ready to bring everyone together. Here is a model agenda to help you plan your first meeting.
- Dedicate 30 minutes to drafting and distributing your agenda. Whether your team has met previously or is convening for the first time, the agenda could include the following topics:
- Introductions: Everyone shares their name, department/agency, and role in elections, emergency preparedness, incident response, or security.
- Election Overview: Walk through the lists you made of the operational areas of your office; key staff, equipment, and procedures in each; vulnerabilities you recognize; and back-ups in place or needed. Provide the timeline for upcoming elections.
- Incidents & Threats: Explore the risks to elections in your jurisdiction by sharing threat intelligence and the impact of natural disasters in other jurisdictions, and reviewing any recent incidents or concerns.
- Mission: Share your vision for election security. Work together to establish a clear mission to ensure the team understands its purpose and scope.
- Meeting Cadence: Agree on a meeting cadence, location, and standard running agenda for future meetings. Frequency may vary based on the timing of your next election, and a mix of in-person and virtual meetings can encourage participation. If this is your only meeting before the primary, discuss when and how often to meet before the general election.
In subsequent meetings, the Election Overview may be just a timeline refresher for an upcoming election, and the Meeting Cadence may be a reminder of the when and how for the next meeting. Anytime someone new joins, introduce everyone and their role!
Need more tips? Check out the Election Security Exchange’s guide It Starts with a Team: Building Your Election Security Working Group.
Want help facilitating your first meeting? Contact us at [email protected].
The Planning Desk is a running timeline of key election security tasks. You can find prior editions in the newsletter archive.