Inside the world of election law

Noune Kachichyan (she/her)
Major: Political Science, '27
Hometown: Kessab, Syria and Fresno, California
Internship: National Conference of State Legislatures

Noune Kachichyan reflects on researching election law across the states and gaining a deeper understanding of American election administration.

Before this summer, I thought I knew quite a bit about elections.

I had studied them in the classroom, followed them closely outside of it, and even spent part of the previous year researching mail voting at the Brookings Institution. But within my first few weeks as an intern with the National Conference of State Legislatures' (NCSL Elections and Redistricting Program, I began to realize just how much of the world of elections I had yet to understand.

It turns out that asking a seemingly simple question about how elections work can send you down a rabbit hole of statutes, administrative codes, state constitutions, legislative histories, and, occasionally, a law written decades ago that has somehow survived countless amendments. And when your job is to answer that question not for one state, but potentially all 50, things become complicated very quickly.

That has also been one of my favorite parts of the job.

NCSL occupies a particularly interesting place in the policymaking world. As a bipartisan organization serving state legislatures across the country, our job is not to tell legislators what policy they should pursue, but to help them understand the landscape in which they are making those decisions. On the Elections and Redistricting team, that can mean answering a question from a legislative office, updating one of NCSL's election resources, tracking legislation, or researching how every state approaches a particular piece of election administration.

Much of my summer has been spent doing exactly that kind of research. I've examined everything from third-party and electronic voter registration to campaign finance and state election authorities, often beginning with what sounds like a straightforward question and discovering 50 different answers...or, just as often, discovering that the law does not provide a straightforward answer at all.

My largest project has involved updating an NCSL webpage on disclaimer requirements for political advertisements. Think of the quick message you hear at the end of a political video saying, “This video was paid for by [insert name],” or the words “paid advertisement” on a communication supporting or opposing a candidate or issue. These disclaimers are designed to give voters information about who is sponsoring a political message and, in turn, more context for understanding the message itself. Accompanying the substantive update to the webpage, I also had the opportunity to write an article exploring the evolution of political advertising and the disclaimer laws that have evolved with them.

Working state by state on these kinds of questions has not only forced me to become a much more careful legal researcher, but has also given me a much deeper appreciation for election administration itself. Elections are often discussed nationally, particularly in the news, as though there is one American election system. Spend enough time comparing state election laws, however, and that idea quickly falls apart. The rules governing everything from voter registration to campaign practices can look remarkably different depending on which side of a state line you happen to be standing on. Seeing those differences up close has made the federalist structure of American elections feel far less abstract than it ever did in a classroom.

Particularly impactful was a team visit to the Colorado State Capitol, where we had the opportunity to speak with legislative staff working behind the scenes to support the legislature and hear firsthand about the tremendous amount of work that goes into keeping such an operation running. Legislative staff are also an important part of NCSL's membership, so it was especially rewarding to see some of those relationships in action and better understand the people our work ultimately serves.

Just as meaningful has been getting to do all of this alongside the Elections and Redistricting team. I've been trusted with important work, encouraged to ask questions, and given the space to follow my curiosity when research has taken an unexpected turn. More than anything, I've been able to watch people who know this field extraordinarily well approach complicated questions with both expertise and an understanding that sometimes the most responsible answer is simply: it's complicated.

I've also been lucky enough to spend the summer doing all of this in Denver. Moving to a new state for a few months, building a routine here, exploring Colorado, and finding community outside of work have become an important part of the experience in their own right. There is something fitting about spending a summer studying how differently states operate while getting to know a new one myself.

As I prepare to return to Stanford for my senior year, I'm leaving this summer with a much more grounded understanding of what working in the world of elections can actually look like, and that's a really exciting feeling to have before the inevitable scramble of figuring out what comes next!