(Stacker) - As a 19-year-old election worker in Hennepin County, Minnesota, Lydia McComas discovered how meaningful it was to help voters navigate the process. Less than a decade later, she’s the city clerk in Madison, Wisconsin, overseeing one of the most scrutinized election offices in the state and working to rebuild trust after last year’s ballot mishandling scandal.

Between those two points, McComas followed an unusually direct path: a college internship supporting elections planning, then a full-time job in a county elections office along with a graduate program in election administration.

She’s part of an emerging generation of officials who set out early and very intentionally, through internships and university training, to make a career out of election work. Driving this moveme

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