It’s not a secret that local election officials are working in an increasingly hostile climate. But data shows that since the 2020 election, county-level administrators in swing states are dealing with the influx of threats and harassment by simply leaving their jobs.
“There’s been death threats, there’s been stuff posted on the internet as far as home addresses. And fortunately, I have not had that, but others have, and I do think it’s the elections climate nowadays that is driving these people out,” said Dawn Graham, county elections director in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania.
A NOTUS analysis of county-level administrators in six swing states shows that in 153 out of 354 counties (or their equivalents) — more than 40% — are being run by someone different than the person in charge during the 2020 election. In 2020, only around 30% of these same counties were served by someone new than in 2016.
The increase in turnover amounts to the loss of hundreds of years of experience in places where tallying ballots could get very complicated. The counties analyzed span some of the most crucial battleground states, with high potential for razor-thin margins and recounts: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
At least 49 counties saw repeated turnover, and the elections administrators in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential elections were all different people. A handful of counties have found the elections administrator slated to serve this November just within this year, and one Arizona county has seen a whopping five elections directors since 2020.
Some of the turnover can be attributed to the regular churn of retirements or new jobs. About a dozen county-level elections administrators who spoke to NOTUS said it’s not uncommon to see a fair number of county clerks or elections directors depart every few years. In several states, the county elections administrators are elected — so they have to decide in advance if they want to run for another term. But in previous election cycles, reelection was a relatively noncontroversial process for incumbents who wanted to keep doing the work, and many officials stayed in their jobs for decades.
The clerks were all in agreement that there was a direct line between the increase in turnover since 2020 and the steady erosion of public trust in election integrity, spurred on by repeated falsehoods from former President Donald Trump and his allies. Harassment of elections administrators has become par for the course.
“I’ll give you a little clue in” about how the culture around elections looks, said Matt Repasky, the elections director in Columbia County, Pennsylvania. “Since we’ve been sued so many times lately, anything I say out loud, ‘do not use for suing purposes.’ We actually preface a lot of phone calls with that these days, which is sad that we’ve gotten to that point.”
“There was a wave [of directors] in ’20 that said, ‘I’m done. I’m not doing this,’” he added.
In Pennsylvania, around a third of elections directors turned over between 2016 and 2020. That figure is closer to 55% between 2020 and now.
Sue McDonald, the county clerk in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, is new to the top job, but she was previously deputy clerk for years. When former Clerk Janet Loomis retired in 2020, McDonald was a natural fit to step in and take her place. McDonald said she loves her job, and even seeing how the environment changed in 2020, she eagerly stepped into the new role given her knowledge and experience (McDonald ran unopposed).
Working in 2016 and 2020, McDonald saw a noticeable difference in her work even as second-in-command. “People are just hyperfocused on elections due to media and the whole political atmosphere right now,” she told NOTUS. “I’m a little more tense and anxious about things.”
Despite how highly she spoke of the work, it’s unclear how long she’ll stay after the 2024 election.
“I’m even myself questioning whether or not I want to run again next time. I am like, ‘Well, we’ll see how this goes.’ And I think if it’s very stressful, you kind of have to ask yourself, ‘Is it worth it? Do I want to put myself through this again?’” she said. In Wisconsin, 30 county clerks, or over 40%, are new since 2020. That figure was around a third between 2016 and 2020.
Forrest Lehman, director of elections in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, was so concerned when he saw his colleagues in other counties leave that he started tracking turnover personally. He told NOTUS that he’s found that since 2020, the state has lost an accumulated 800 years of experience between the top two county election officials, directors and deputy directors departing.
And there’s a cost when people leave suddenly due to harassment versus a regularly scheduled and often well-anticipated retirement.
“The tricky part for folks who are coming in new is they often don’t even know what they don’t know because when you have somebody leave without training a replacement, there’s a disruption in the institutional knowledge,” Lehman said.
“They’re just walking into an office that’s got overflowing applications and the phone’s ringing off the hook. And where do you get started? What do you do?” he said. “They’re having to lean on the voting system company, the solicitor. They’re trying to get their heads around what all is in the election code, and what does the existing staff in the office know about the way things are done around here, and then the way things have to be done.”
Barb Byrum, the clerk in Ingham County, Michigan, also took it upon herself to start tracking turnover of her colleagues after seeing so many of them quit. Byrum hails from a family entrenched in public service. Her mother, Dianne, was a Michigan county commissioner, a state representative, a state senator and ran for Congress. Barb Byrum herself was a state representative before becoming clerk in 2013.
It’s been hard to watch her colleagues, with similar devotion to the public, head for the door.
“Listening to some of the voicemails they’ve received and the attacks that they’ve had to endure, I certainly don’t blame them,” Byrum said.
Michigan’s clerk turnover between 2020 and 2024 is double what it was between 2016 and 2020. That’s also true in Arizona and Nevada.
North Carolina was the only state in the NOTUS analysis that saw overall turnover decrease. But this past April, the state’s board of elections executive director warned the General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Elections Oversight Committee that the turnover was a problem and had a cause.
“The fuel is just not in the fuel tank any longer,” director Karen Brinson Bell told the committee. “Election professionals have faced continued hostility, harassment.”
Every single administrator NOTUS spoke to made it an explicit point to say one thing: They loved their job. And a love for public service is what’s kept many of them around.
“I don’t back down from a fight, and I committed to Ingham County that I was going to continue to run safe and secure elections, and that’s what I’m going to do,” Byrum said.
Others say they have a high tolerance for the sort of harassment that comes with the job nowadays.
“I don’t really give a crap. People want to scream at me; go ahead and scream at me. That doesn’t solve a problem or doesn’t fix what you’re trying to accomplish. So I guess I’m a little more laid-back than a lot of people or just can handle it differently,” Repasky said.
Though there are other reasons he’s sticking around: “Well, I’m not of retirement age.”
One administrator who is of retirement age, though, is Clerk Sheryl Guy of Antrim County, Michigan. She’s been in the office for 45 years, first as a switchboard operator and then working her way up.
“I keep here on my desk my [clerk] directory, and I have sticky notes by all my new people and my retired and leaving people. And you know, it is increasing all the time,” she said. Many “were quite ready to give it up.”
It was supposed to be her turn next. After 2020, where she’d initially misreported that President Joe Biden won her reliably Republican county and fixed it within days, the aftermath was severe. Supporters of former President Trump were pointing to her county as evidence that vote-counting software could be undercutting his vote tally. Even though the error was found quickly and fixed, she was inundated with death threats and harassment.
When she filed her reelection paperwork in 2020, she knew that it would be her last term as clerk, but after all this, she was really looking forward to a well-earned retirement in 2024.
That is until Victoria Bishop, who Guy sees as a candidate who perpetuates election fraud theories, won the Republican primary for clerk with no Democratic opponent.
Guy, a former Republican who voted for Trump in 2016, was horrified. She’d have been happy with a number of the other GOP candidates for clerk but not Bishop. So, after being haunted for days and going home and talking it over with her husband, she’s launched a write-in campaign to try to keep the job she’d planned to leave. She’ll be one of the first to see in November, as county clerk, if she’s been successful. Since 2012, Guy has run unopposed for clerk, per The Washington Post. Bishop is her first opponent.
“I’ve always loved my job. Even through the worst of my job, I still didn’t dislike my job, and I feel strongly about my public and the constituents and the people we serve, and in good conscience, I have to try and win,” she said.
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Nuha Dolby is a reporter at NOTUS and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.