Exercises are a key component of preparedness. They provide the participants with the opportunity to shape planning, assess and validate capabilities, and address areas for improvement. The Office for State and Local Law Enforcement is proud to offer the “Election Security: SLTT and Campus Law Enforcement Discussion Based Exercise” Exercise Starter Kit (ESK). This is a modular and scalable toolkit to assist your jurisdiction in preparing to provide law enforcement support to your local elections.
The ESK is not intended to provide answers or guidance on how individual jurisdictions and law enforcement agencies should provide support to their local elections, but instead present potential scenario(s) that law enforcement might be presented with and provide a basis for a discussion among exercise participants on how to best respond, based on local laws and agencies policies and procedures.
The following documents are included in the ESK and described below:
- Situation Manual: The Situation Manual (SitMan) provides exercise participants with all the necessary tools for their roles in the exercise. It describes the exercise objectives and core capabilities, participant roles and responsibilities, and how to structure and run the exercise. It also includes the scenario modules and suggested discussion topics and questions for the exercise. The ESK is designed so that the host jurisdiction can use only one of the modules or up to all three.
- Facilitator/Evaluator Guide: The facilitator/evaluator guide is intended to be used by the exercise proctor and provides planning considerations for the execution of an exercise, and discussion questions for internal conversations based on the scenario modules, and information on how to complete an after-action report upon conclusion of the exercise.
- Exercise Placemat: The Placemat is a pre-formatted hand-out that can be tailored to fit the exercise design. Participants in the exercise should be provided with a printed copy of the completed Placemat.
- Exercise Presentation: The Presentation is a pre-formatted PowerPoint slide show, that can be tailored to fit the exercise design and should be used to help guide the participants through the exercise.
Time Expectation: Because the ESK is designed to be modular and scalable based on each individual jurisdiction’s needs, it can be tailored to fit the time constraints of agency leadership. An estimated time to complete an exercise would be between two and six hours, depending on how many modules are presented to exercise participants.
To receive a copy of the ESK, email OSLLE@hq.dhs.gov from a government or law enforcement email address and include your name, position title and contact information, and the files will be emailed to you.