Douglas County Clerk’s Office wins national election innovation award again

Douglas County’s election office earned another national nod for doing the unglamorous work that can decide whether voters get a ballot, fix a mistake, and have confidence their vote was counted correctly.

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission named the Douglas County Clerk’s Office a 2025 Clearinghouse Award winner in the small-jurisdictions category for “Innovations and New Practices in Election Administration.” The honor went to a multi-year workflow overhaul built around Microsoft 365 and led by Deputy County Clerk Ed Healy.

County officials said the project improved efficiency, accuracy and chain-of-custody tracking during the 2025 election cycle, the kind of back-office system voters rarely see but depend on every time they request a mail ballot or correct a problem with it. The award also put Douglas County back in national company for a second time. In 2023, the clerk’s office won a Clearinghouse Award for an RFID tagging system that strengthened security, chain-of-custody logs and accountability for election supplies and equipment.

The EAC announced 46 winners nationwide this year from nearly 200 entries. The Clearinghouse Awards marked their 10th anniversary in 2026, and judges evaluated submissions on innovation, sustainability, outreach, cost-effectiveness, replicability and positive results. Douglas County’s entry stood out in that field by showing how a local office can modernize election administration without abandoning paper-based accountability.

That matters in a county with 84,000 registered voters that described itself in its submission as both rural and urban, and home to the University of Kansas, Haskell Indian Nations University and Baker University. The office also said Douglas County is the fifth-largest county in Kansas, a scale that brings city-style turnout pressure and county-style geography under the same roof.

The practical stress points were not abstract. Douglas County said its workflow problems are concentrated in ballot requests, voter corrections, provisional mail ballots and return-ballot curing, especially when applications contain errors or signature deficiencies. Kansas law allows no-excuse advance voting, but voters still must file a mail ballot application for each election, which creates recurring administrative work every cycle.

The numbers show why the process matters. During the 2024 presidential election, Douglas County received 13,899 mail ballot requests and returned 12,952 ballots. In the 2025 city and school general election, it received 7,678 requests and returned 5,268 ballots. Those are the touchpoints where a faster, clearer workflow can reduce delays and help voters avoid disqualification over paperwork problems.

Jamie Shew said the recognition reflected the dedication of the elections team, and County Commissioner Shannon Reid said the office’s approach serves as a model other counties can learn from. For Douglas County voters, the real test comes before the next election cycle: whether the office’s systems keep making it easier to request, correct and return a ballot while preserving the records that prove every step was handled properly.