Threats, turmoil prompt record turnover among U.S. elections officials

Turnover trend accelerates

Data from the Bipartisan Policy Center, which tracks top elections officials around the country, shows 36% of all elections officials are new, compared to the last presidential election.

"You're seeing a mass exodus of institutional knowledge with election directors and elections administrators who have done this for 30 years, 40 years that are leaving this field," Cook said.

In conjunction with the non-partisan OSET Institute, the group behind the national "Trust the Vote Project," CBS News found people with hundreds of years of experience managing the vote have retired or quit.

"It is an unprecedented number of election officials that are leaving the profession," said OSET Institute Board Member Edward "Eddie" Perez, who researches voting technology and election administration.

Officials in New York's Rockland County told CBS New York they anticipate the turnover trend will continue.

"We do predict that people, after a presidential election and after how busy it is and intense, it ends up getting that people do consider retiring," Patricia Giblin, Rockland County, NY Elections Commissioner, said.

Elections officials face threats

Elections officials across the country said they've received threats, and, in some cases, the threats lead to resignations.

Teak Brockbank of Cortez, Colorado is facing federal charges after the U.S. Attorney's Office said he threatened elections officials. One social media post called for elections officials to "... hang by the neck till they are Dead Dead Dead."

Weld County, Colorado Clerk Carly Koppes told CBS Colorado she's received dozens of threats over the last four years, which called her a "demon," "whore" and "hag."

"I never thought in multiple years in elections that threats and attacks be aimed at such a personal level," she said.

Harford County, Maryland, Elections Director Stephanie Taylor showed CBS Baltimore a book of correspondence from the public, which includes nasty letters. Taylor said they've been called "Nazis," and the stress has caused people in her office to quit.

As of January 2024, Maryland's turnover rate was 46%, which means almost half of the officials overseeing presidential elections in the state are new compared to those in 2020, according to data from the Bipartisan Policy Center.

"There's a lot of angry people in this world that do not trust the election process," Taylor said. "I don't know how to get through to them."

Dallas County Election Administrator Heider Garcia told CBS News Texas the pressure has worked on election administrators he knows.

"There is an increase and it's undeniable that it's directly related to the environment that we're subject to," he said.

77 out of 254 elections jurisdictions in Texas lost at least one local election official since 2020, according to a CBS News analysis of OSET Institute research of media reports and news releases.

"For me, the greatest concern is that the departure of experienced officials creates vulnerability for how the public is going to perceive elections, at exactly the same time that the information environment has just been absolutely poisoned by a lot of baseless and unfounded claims," Perez said.

Whether that could impact voter confidence is on the mind of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania Elections Director Greg McCloskey. He came into his role in 2020.

"I think our biggest threat is going to be misinformation and people miscommunicate it and I think that's going to occur out in the precincts with the poll workers and the voters, people challenging them," McCloskey told CBS Pittsburgh.

Experts say turnover could lead to mistakes

CBS News' analysis found that turnover among elections officials has increased over time across all regions of the country. It started after the infamous "hanging chad" ballots in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. The data shows this turnover affects both elected and appointed officials.

CBS Minnesota asked a local elections administrator what is lost when people leave positions they've had for several elections cycles.

"We're losing that experience," Michael Stahlberger, the elections administrator of Blue Earth County, said. "There's so much in elections that you have to have some sort of background, right? You need to know what you don't even know, so that you can prevent that, prevent a potential issue from occurring."

"The turnover among especially appointed (and) elected officials is because of the ugliness that's taken over our politics," said former Travis County, Texas Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir. "We can make a judgment call about whether the person needs more training and more support for an accidental mistake rather than jumping to a terrible conclusion that they've done something deliberately. That usually is not the case."

Perez said human mistakes are part of the process but almost never have a direct, identifiable impact on the outcome.

"Mistakes happen in elections all the time and they don't rock our democracy," Perez said. "What does rock our democracy is when simple mistakes happen, and when you have bad faith actors that are putting them under a magnifying glass and saying this is the end of our democracy."

One example of a mistake, which became magnified in the public consciousness, happened in Luzerne County during the 2022 midterm election. Officials ran out of the correct ballot paper at 16 precincts. The ballot paper is specialized and meant to runs through tally machines without issue. Other paper emergency ballots were used and while voting was not fully interrupted the snafu did cause some delays and headaches at the polls.

"We had a brand-new leadership team that had never run an election independently before," said Emily Cook, who was deputy director at the time.

What Cook and others called "mistakes" set off a firestorm in the community and prompted an investigation by the local district attorney's office in Wilkes-Barre.

The DA's investigation report blamed the mistakes on "lack of training and experience." It said voting "was not fully interrupted" because emergency ballots were used. Ultimately, the DA found no criminal wrongdoing or intent to affect the election.

Emily Cook said she and her entire office learned from the experience.

They now have weekly briefings with the county manager. They review a checklist of responsibilities, tasks and deadlines with each staff member accountable for those specific duties.

"We created these task calendars that outline who is responsible for doing what and when they're supposed to do it," Cook said. "We include that in a weekly press release so that not only do we know in our office what needs to be done, but the public knows."

The Texas secretary of state met directly with elections officials across the state this summer to review new legislation and rules. This year, for the first time, the office is also providing lessons on stress management.

"We need to teach them how to handle that, and to understand that there are going to be people with 18 million voters, who have a complaint and how to deal with that," Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson told CBS Texas. "So, we're helping to educate them on dealing with that kind of situation. I think perhaps the reason we lost some is that they weren't able to handle that, and we want to make sure they can."

Officials in Broward County, Florida, are also making changes to keep their elections staff safe during these tense times. Supervisor of Elections Joe Scott, showed CBS Miami his new state of the art headquarters. It has high-impact windows and 24-hour security. Each room has windows, so voters, candidates and skeptics can see the counting process every step of the way.

The facility is the "perfect blend of transparency and security," according to Scott.

New people can mean new skills and perspectives

Some elections experts said "new blood" and perspectives can be a good thing, especially in local elections offices where officials may have been there over decades and utilize systems that are out of date. In some cases, experts said, those older, experienced elections officials have become too rigid or slow to adopt and accept new technology.

"You can have election officials who have been there too long and aren't really up to doing the job," said Cameron Quinn who used to supervise elections in Virginia. "So, the next person brings in strengths that were not the strengths of that (previous) person."

Even Quinn admitted, however, the current turnover rate is not a good thing for the country overall.

"It's always a little bit of concern when there are new people," Quinn said.

Quinn believes new officials can overcome that inexperience with training and a willingness to learn from mistakes, which are inevitable anytime a new person takes over.

In Maryland, the head of elections is partnering more experienced officials with newer ones to lessen the impact of any turnover.

"Having that full confidence in the system is the underpinning of everything that we do," Jared DeMarinis told CBS Baltimore.

The City Clerk in Haverhill, Massachusetts, took over the post in 2023, after the longtime clerk left.

"I know she that she was tired after the last presidential election," Katilin Wright told CBS Boston.

Wright is busy keeping up with the "Votes Act," which the Massachusetts legislature passed in 2020. The law enacted universal vote by mail and automatic voter registration. Wright feels the weight of the upcoming election.

"It is nerve wracking because there's a lot at stake here," she said.

Staying on the job

In Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, Emily Cook said she embraces the new challenge and is taking all the training classes she can, while also learning from the mistakes of previous elections supervisors in Luzerne County.

Despite the pressure and threats, Cook insists she will not join the ranks of people quitting the profession. She said she's been called to do this job ever since she was a little girl and watched her great grandmother working the polls.

"I never wanted to be (in charge of the government). I didn't want to be president," Cook said. "But supporting the whole government through whatever way that I was able to in elections was something that I've always been passionate about."

Nevada County, California Registrar of Voters Natalie Adona told CBS News California Investigates she has faced threats and danger on the job but is sticking it out.

"Experience is super important because you have the opportunity to learn from what happened in the past election," she said.

Bergen County, New Jersey's election commissioners are from both the Republican and Democratic Parties. They told CBS New York they work well together.

"We all believe that our job is to make sure everyone who is eligible to vote, that their vote gets counted," said Bergen County Elections Commissioner John Schettino, a Democrat.

Across Pennsylvania, CBS News found a combined total of more than 700 years of experience has been lost as positions turnover. Elections officials in localities across the battleground state are preparing to be in the spotlight in this November's election.

"Everyone here is working really hard to make sure the process is safe, secure and accessible," Neil Makhija, Vice Chair of the Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Commission, told CBS Philadelphia.