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Gustafson: “This campaign is incredibly unifying, the idea of service.”
In case you missed it, Vet the Vote Executive Director Ellen Gustafson joined SiriusXM’s Julie Mason Show on Veterans Day to discuss the Vet the Vote coalition’s historic efforts to recruit more than 163,500 veterans and military family members to serve as poll workers in the 2024 election cycle. Gustafson applauded the community for their continued service to the country. Vet the Vote exceedingly surpassed their goal of 100,000 recruits this year.
Gustafson, a military spouse, detailed the expansive partnerships with military, veterans and professional sports leagues including the NFL, NASCAR and NBA to recruit veterans and military family members to volunteer as poll workers and bolster trust in the electoral process. “America needs them [veterans], but we also need the incredible trust that the American public across the board has in our community to be there at the polls and remind everyone in the country that our elections are indeed free, fair and secure,” said Gustafson.
She went on to highlight how unifying patriotic service is: “It's not a political thing. It's people from all backgrounds serving the country in the military, and …let's extend that service to the idea of being a poll worker. Your service doesn't have to stop. Of course, you can do other things for the country, and poll working is a great way to do that. And we really hope that it helped to build trust in the system.”
Further, Gustafson showcased recent research conducted in partnership with the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement that found recruiting veterans and military family members to serve as poll workers significantly boosts public confidence in the election process. The study also found the knowledge that election officials are hiring veterans and military families fosters positive perceptions.
You can listen to Gustafson’s SiriusXM interview in its entirety here.
Full transcript of Gustafson’s interview is available below.
Transcript: Ellen Gustafson of Vet the Vote on Sirius XM’s Julie Mason Show
November 11, 2024
JULIE MASON: I'm Julie Mason, so pleased to welcome back to the show Ellen Gustafson, Executive Director of We the Veterans and Military Families Foundation, talk a little politics, a little Veterans Day. Ellen, how are you?
ELLEN GUSTAFSON: Great. Thanks, Happy Veterans Day to everyone listening.
MASON: Happy Veterans Day indeed. So vets really turned out for this election.
GUSTAFSON: Yes, we were thrilled to have recruited out of America's around 900,000 a little more poll workers, 163,000 veterans and military family members who signed up to serve. Yeah.
MASON: That's huge. That's wonderful. And was that like a campaign that you ran to get them involved in the election?
GUSTAFSON: Yeah. Our organization partnered with a bunch of other military and veteran organizations and the NFL, NASCAR, the NBA, just to recruit veterans and their families to sign up to serve again as poll workers. America needs them, but we also need the incredible trust that the American public across the board has in our community to be there at the polls and remind everyone in the country that our elections are indeed free, fair and secure.
MASON: And did the veterans feel that they were?
GUSTAFSON: Yes. The most amazing thing is that when people actually do the work of being a poll worker, you know, get trained by their local jurisdiction, and they're on five o'clock in the morning and do the long day, overwhelmingly, people say, wow, “it's an incredibly tight system.” We've got it down. Each state has their own ways of doing business, but each state has it pretty well sorted and very secure.
MASON: That's terrific. And there were so many organizations involved. We the Veterans and Military Families, Veterans of Foreign Wars, AMVETS, et cetera, et cetera, Veterans for All Voters, so many organizations.
GUSTAFSON: Yeah, you know, what's cool about this campaign is that it's incredibly unifying, the idea of service, right? It's not a political thing. It's, you know, people from all backgrounds serve the country in the military, and our feeling was, let's just, you know, extend that service to the idea of being a poll worker. You know, your service doesn't have to stop. Of course, you can do other things for the country, and poll working is a great way to do that. And we really hope that it helped to build trust in the system and remind Americans that, look, you're getting a lot of foreign directed misinformation, even in your in your social media, on your phone, and it's good to remember that the patriotic feeling is that, of course, American elections are awesome.
MASON: Yeah, indeed. There was a wonderful story in the Washington Post today. I hope you saw it about veterans getting involved in hurricane recovery and how it's given so many of them a real sense of purpose to serve in that way.
GUSTAFSON: 1,000%. I mean, there's incredible organizations out there like Team Rubicon and others that bring veterans and this incredible skill set they have to just get the job done to work in complex situations. But really what it comes down to is the idea that, you know, you were trained and then you had the experience of doing something for such a higher purpose, which is your love of country and your commitment to your fellow citizens in the military. And there's so many ways you can do that after and universally, people who do continue the service, and I include military family members in this too, feel really good about it and have a renewed sense of patriotism and commitment.
MASON: I really feel like overall, the veterans who've been elected to Congress have been just a plus for the whole system.
GUSTAFSON: You know, it's amazing. I say this a lot. Veterans are more likely to be independent, and people that are military connected also have the unique experience of truly living in a pluralistic America. You know, very few Americans actually have that many connections, friends, you know, community members that are across all backgrounds, ideological, religious, everything. And we live that way on a day to day basis. When you move to a military town and you're in, you know, serving a unit, you do not get to choose the people that you work with based on their political identity or even where they're from in the country. And that is a huge benefit to being able to see, you know, kind of the forest through the trees, that at the end of the day, Americans can become whole different backgrounds and political views and still love their country. And it's a huge benefit that we get from the experience of service.
MASON: It's also, yes. And going back to the participation in elections Ellen, it also seems to me that with so many Americans questioning election integrity and whether the system is sound, that these veterans getting involved at this level is quite reassuring.
GUSTAFSON: Yeah, there's actually really great data. We did a survey along with our partners at the University of Maryland, and overwhelmingly, the data showed that, you know, when people hear that veterans are working the polls, it builds their trust in the system, and we think that that can extend to things, you know, the election system, but so many others. And I think Congress, back to your original question. You know when, when there's more people who have experienced pluralism, had this sense of service and duty to country over party, it's really good for Congress to have those folks in there. We know how to get along, and we know how to get things done. From, with people from all different backgrounds, and that should serve to work well in Congress, as it does in so many other facets of our society.
MASON: Really, really interesting. Ellen Gustafson is Executive Director of We the Veterans and Military Families Foundation. Ellen, thank you so much.
GUSTAFSON: Thank you for having me.
MASON: Take care.