Across the country, election officials and administrators—the people responsible for overseeing, administering, and ensuring accessible and accurate elections—are leaving their posts. High turnover among election officials can diminish institutional knowledge and negatively impact voters. As this recent New York Times article illustrates, misinformation, intimidation, and lack of resources are at the heart of why election officials are being driven out of the profession. The hardworking officials who take on the job of administering elections are vital to democracy and are under immense pressure. We must support them so they can do their jobs.

Civil servants leave their posts

Turnover is normal in any job, but the percentage of election officials leaving their jobs in 2022 was higher than at any point in the past two decades, at 39% (up from 28% in 2004). Not surprisingly, the increase in turnover began in 2020. A recent survey from the Brennan Center for Justice found that 21% of local election officials either started their jobs after the 2020 election or said they were “very” or “somewhat unlikely” to stay in their jobs for the 2024 election.

The Institute for Responsive Government found that of the states it studied between 2019 and 2023, the highest turnover rates were in Missouri, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Wyoming, Kentucky and Nevada. The Center for Bipartisan Policy’s nationwide study found that the states with the highest turnover rates between 2018 and 2022 were Indiana, Arizona, California and Pennsylvania, with rates ranging from 64.1% to 56.7%.

Both reports note that despite the high turnover rate, most new election officials already have experience in election administration. Nevertheless, top election officials in several states have drawn attention to the exodus of many election officials in their jurisdictions. Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt and North Carolina State Board of Elections Director Karen Brinson Bell have both expressed concern about the number of election officials leaving the profession. In Pennsylvania, 70 senior directors or their direct deputies have recently resigned. In his statement expressing concern about the turnover rate in Pennsylvania, Secretary Al Schmidt directly cited his personal experience as the subject of intimidation and threats.

What is causing the high turnover of election officials?

While we don’t necessarily need to worry about unqualified election officials, we should try to understand and address why we’re seeing rising turnover. One reason is that election officials are burdened with increasingly complex work, are under-resourced for that work, and are paid “chronically low wages” to do it.

When the Brennan Center for Justice conducted a survey in April 2023, a whopping 74% of election officials said they needed more funding. Both state and federal governments are underfunded, leaving elections vulnerable to administrative errors, shortages of poll workers, and cyberattacks. In North Carolina, a lack of funding forced officials to eliminate one cybersecurity position and reduce the number of employees managing election data from six employees to one full-time and one part-time employee.

But perhaps the most pressing reason for civil servants to leave the field is the increasingly hostile climate and the threats they face.

In 2022, 25% of local election officials, particularly those in larger jurisdictions, reported being abused, harassed, or threatened in the past two years. In 2024, another survey found that 30% of officials surveyed reported personally experiencing abuse, intimidation, or threats. Since the summer of 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has received more than 1,000 tips about threats against election workers; they have officially investigated just under a dozen. The FBI noted that these threats were most prevalent in a handful of states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

In the summer of 2021, the Justice Department created the Election Threats Task Force and charged 20 people with making threats against election officials, resulting in 13 convictions. An Ohio man was recently sentenced to two and a half years in prison for making threats against former Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. In Michigan, a man was charged after he said the Oakland County elections director should be hanged for treason. In July, an Indiana man was sentenced to 14 months in prison for sending death threats to a Michigan election administrator following the 2020 election. And as previously mentioned, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt cited the increase in death threats against officials and spoke of his firsthand experience of being threatened during the 2020 presidential election.

Most of these threats target women, who make up 80% of election workers in the country. Research has also found that threats against women in election administration often use sexually explicit or misogynistic language, gender stereotypes, and threats of sexual violence. In 2022, Emily Cook was the deputy director of elections in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. After a series of administrative problems in the county’s November 2022 elections, Cook and her colleagues were threatened. In the weeks leading up to the April presidential election, Cook was named acting director of elections after the former director stepped down just a year into the job.

When Tina Barton, a former Michigan clerk, was confronted at a Republican convention in 2020 after her election office made a minor clerical error on election night (an error that was promptly corrected), she was shocked. As a Republican, she watched members of President Trump’s campaign team tweet about her by name and shame, accusing her of “giving” Republican votes to Democrats. Since 2020, Barton has stepped down from her job as the city’s clerk but now travels the country helping election administrators prepare for various election scenarios, including how to respond to the kind of threatening voicemail she personally received days after she gained national attention. The man who left the message eventually pleaded guilty to threatening Barton with murder and was sentenced to 14 months in prison.

Ahead of the 2024 elections, the Republican National Committee announced “Protect the Vote,” a plan to recruit 100,000 poll workers and election observers to volunteer at polling stations in seven swing states. Critics fear that these volunteers, who are said to be monitoring cases of voter fraud, could intimidate voters and administrators. There are also concerns that these poll workers and observers could become aggressive, leading to cases of intimidation and interference.

The attempted assassination of former President and current Republican candidate Donald Trump earlier this summer has some election officials, like Towanna Dixon in Moore County, North Carolina, worried about the potential violence her staff and poll workers could face in November. The specter of violence could lead some poll workers to resign.

How do we protect election officials?

The good news is that the federal government and state governments can take steps to protect the people who administer our elections and reduce staff turnover.

First, to help election workers do their jobs effectively and safely, we must find effective ways to combat election lies and conspiracy theories spread on and off social media.

Election officials agree that the spread of disinformation makes their jobs more dangerous. Misinformation and disinformation can motivate people to harass, assault, and threaten election workers. With a chaotic campaign season, an attempted assassination, and last-minute candidate changes, conspiracy theories are spreading more than ever. It’s vital to address disinformation, including encouraging social media companies to provide comprehensive and clear ways to identify sources of disinformation.

To achieve that goal, UCS is working with election officials, administrators, and others involved in elections in our Election Science Task Force to respond to disinformation that emerges in the coming months.

Second, every state and the federal government must enact laws that protect election officials, administrators, staff, and poll workers from threats and secure their personal information. Since 2020, 18 states have enacted laws aimed at protecting election workers, and more states should follow suit. In addition, state and federal governments must thoroughly investigate cases of abuse, intimidation, and threats against election workers and prosecute those responsible.

After a third-floor window of the Cuyahoga County Board of Election building in Ohio was shot through in June 2024, state lawmakers introduced a bill to protect election administrators by preventing the release of public records about the residencies of officials or their families.

Lawmakers should also recognize the importance of specifically addressing threats against women. The Brookings Institute points to a recent California law that expanded confidentiality protections for survivors of domestic violence to cover election workers. Brookings also argues that the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) should be used to protect female election workers.

Relatedly, states can ban firearms at polling places. At a time of growing concern about political violence, particularly after the shooting at a Trump rally in July, several states have banned firearms at polling places. Nine of the 21 states with laws banning firearms at polling places have passed such statutes in the past two years. In fact, a bill proposing such a ban was introduced in the Pennsylvania legislature earlier this year.

Finally, we can pay election officials and their staff competitive salaries and allocate more money to election offices. Funding should specifically include money for election security, so officials don’t have to “choose between improvements for voters and their own safety.” For example, in 2022, the Brennan Center for Justice estimated the relative costs of various security measures, such as bulletproofing election offices and installing panic alarm systems.

Election officials are the key to a healthier democracy

To have a healthy democracy, we need experienced election administrators who can safely administer free and fair elections. As disinformation, violence, intimidation, and inadequate resources drive these officials out of office, the risk of poorly administered and unfair elections grows. This trend is more than an administrative inconvenience: it is a fundamental challenge to our democracy. By implementing the steps outlined above, we can begin to make the necessary changes needed to address this challenge.