The Bench is the heart of what we do. It is the community of program-certified Americans who have completed our training and met our standards. Lawyers. Civic professionals. Citizens. People who understand the law of their state and the procedures of their county, organized into a community of practice that grows stronger with every election cycle.
It begins with the curriculum: a professionally developed program in election law, tailored to the state where participants serve. We shape the content in partnership with a leading national law firm with deep expertise in this work. The program is built to be comprehensive and accessible, to meet participants where they are.
Program-certification is what places a participant on The Bench: the Fund's internal designation, earned by completing the program, passing our assessments, and committing to our standards of conduct.
From there, program-certified members can serve where they live, under the law of their state.
Election administration in the United States is enormously complex. There are roughly 10,000 election jurisdictions across the country, each with its own rules, ballots, and procedures. Federal law sets a floor, and the rest is state and local.
The citizens who show up to watch these elections, at polling places and central count facilities, in signature verification rooms and post-election audits, are doing some of the most important civic work in the country. For most of them, training is ad hoc. A two-hour briefing. A handout. A more experienced person to ask.
This is not how a republic prepares its citizens for the work of self-government. The Bench is.
The Bench launches in Arizona for the 2026 election cycle. Arizona has one of the most procedurally complex election environments in the country and a state where trained observers are urgently needed.
From Arizona, the program expands nationwide. The work in each state is built with local election counsel and adapted to that state's law and procedure, on a timeline that reflects what serious civic infrastructure actually requires to stand up.