(NewsNation) — A new study says election officials from coast to coast are leaving their jobs at the highest rates in decades.
The Bipartisan Policy Center study finds that at least 36% of local election offices have changed leadership since 2020, and 39% of jurisdictions had new leadership from four years earlier. Both numbers are the highest four-year turnover rates in 20 years.
While some workers are retiring and others are moving to similar jobs, the study found that many are quitting because of stress, harassment and outright danger.
“The harassment is endless,” says David Becker, head of The Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonprofit foundation focusing on elections. He tells The Texas Tribune the harassment aimed at elections workers isn’t just 9 to 5.
“It might be when they go to church, or go shopping, or are picking up their kids from school. Election officials are exhausted.”
In Arizona’s largest county, “Our main facility is a fortress now,” according to Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer.
He tells WIRED magazine “we have gates up around the clock. We have badge access around the clock, we have general security outside of our facility, and because we have an election going on right now, we have additional security, additional barriers, additional patrols.”
Richer says all that security involves the county, the city of Phoenix and the Arizona Department of Homeland Security.
“They are all committing a lot of resources” to protect election workers, Richer said. “It’s a damn shame.”
In Gillespie County, Texas, an entire election staff resigned in 2022 after workers struggled to fend off fringe election conspiracy assertions that began before President Donald Trump lost his reelection race in 2020.
Another cost of high turnover is low experience. In Pennsylvania, a study by the voting organization Votebeat found und that at least 58 elections officials on the job in 2019 have left, for a loss of a combined 293 years of experience.
That may lead to errors, such as the incorrect instruction to voters in Greene County, Pennsylvania that told voters they could choose as many as three candidates is a commissioner race. In fact, the race allowed voters to select just two candidates.
“I think the loss of experienced election directors at the county level is one of the biggest dangers we face,” Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt told Votebeat. “That turnover creates an environment where it’s more likely for mistakes to be made.”
Some states report only a few incidents of harassment and threats, but must still spend time and money to prepare.
“This type of stuff knows no borders,” Rhode Island Secretary of State Rob Rock told The Boston Globe. “It’s important we remain vigilant about it.”
Rock says a big portion of the turnover of elections officials there is retirement and administrators taking similar jobs in other cities and counties.
Even so, Rhode Island lawmakers are considering a bill to designate election officials and poll workers “public officials,” which would include them in existing laws banning threats to public officials.
