Lack of local election officials raises partisanship concerns
There is no shortage of job openings for local election officials in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
After facing threats and intimidation during the 2020 presidential election and its aftermath, and now the potential of new punishments in certain states, county officials who run elections are quitting or retiring early. The once quiet job of election administration has become a political minefield thanks to the baseless claims of widespread fraud that continue to be pushed by many in the Republican Party. Who will take these jobs? “These conspiracy theorists are in it for the long haul. They’re in it to completely crumble our republic, and they’re looking at these election administrator positions,” said Barb Byrum, clerk of Ingham
County, Michigan, and a Democrat.
It’s difficult to quantify how many election officials across the country have left their posts and why, since
the departures are not generally tallied. Retirements also are common after presidential elections.
But in places that do track such information, along
with anecdotal accounts from county officials, it is clear that many have recently left because of the newfound partisan rancor around the jobs and the threats many local election workers faced leading up to the November election and afterward as former President Donald Trump and his allies challenged the results.
About a third of Pennsylvania’s county election officials have left in the last 18 months, according to a spokesman for the state’s county commissioners association, who cited heavy workloads and rampant misinformation among the reasons.
“It was particularly challenging last year with all the misinformation and angst out there,” said Lisa Schaefer, executive director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania. “And none of it was caused by county election officials.”
The executive director of a clerks association in Wisconsin said more than two dozen clerks have retired since the election and another 30 clerks or their deputies quit by the end of 2020. Thirteen have left in 2021. In Michigan, Byrum was able to rattle off several seasoned officials who have recently left.
The local election jobs are being vacated as Trump’s false claims of fraud persist within the GOP and provide a platform for his loyalists to launch campaigns to become top election officials in several swing states.
Sylvia Albert, voting and elections director for Common Cause, which advocates for expanded voter access, said that while the statewide positions come with more power, local officials generally have much discretion over how to solve common Election Day issues such as trouble with voting machines.
“If you have an elections official who doesn’t want to expand access to the ballot, who finds democracy disturbing to them, they’re not going to fix problems and then they’re going to multiply,” she said.