Nevada's leading election official faces mounting hazards in the pivotal region.
Cari-Ann Burgess, the current top elections official in her county, is the third registrar in just four years. She's held the position for less than six months, and her deputy, Andrew McDonald, has only been there for a few weeks. George Guthrie, a media production specialist, started working there just under nine months ago, while Noah Autrey, the office assistant, took on his full-time role less than a year ago.
With a 100% staff turnover since the last presidential election, Washoe County is a representation of a nationwide phenomenon. States are preparing for the 2024 election while dealing with the departure of election workers due to job complexity and various threats and harassment, according to experts. Election worker turnover has been gradually increasing over the past twenty years, but the rate has increased in the recent cycles. Since 2020, at least 36% of local election officials have left their positions, according to researchers from the Bipartisan Policy Center and the University of California, Los Angeles.
"An unsafe work environment is a significant factor in the departure of election officials," stated Rachel Orey, a senior associate director of the Bipartisan Policy Center's elections project. "Threats and harassment are just some of the many factors that contribute to turnover."
Burgess has left her position before, working on elections in Minnesota in 2020 until the job became too overwhelming. She even had to abandon her cart at a grocery store after a constituent started yelling at her, which left her children and herself shaken.
Burgess left for another job in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, where she managed a friend's ice cream shop. "It was simply the mental break I needed," she said.
She didn't plan on returning to the elections field, but her passion for the country and its elections eventually drew her back. "I love this country. I love elections. It's part of who I am," she said, tearing up. "I had to come back."
Burgess had been working in Nevada's elections for about nine months when she was appointed to lead the state's second-largest county's election administration. Despite her appointment as interim registrar, it received a chilly response.
Citizens flocked to the microphone at the county commissioners meeting in January, disputing her qualifications, accusing her of getting the job through connections, and decrying the appointment as "shady, shady, shady."
Beadles, a real estate investor, cryptocurrency entrepreneur, and vocal Trump supporter, was among the familiar faces.
"Now, you have this Cari-Ann, she might be the nicest girl in the world. But she's certainly not qualified to be our registrar of voters," Beadles told the commissioners.
Beadles has spent a significant amount of time and money promoting election skepticism in the wake of Trump's unproven claims of fraud in 2020.
Nevada's Crucial Battleground County
Washoe County, which includes Reno and is known as "The Biggest Little City in the World," is the most significant battleground county within the battleground state. The county has supported the Democratic candidate in the last four presidential elections, although sometimes narrowly.
As the number of registered voters in the county has risen, and voters have had easier access to the ballot, managing elections there has also become more challenging. In 2021, the state permanently expanded mail-in voting, making it mandatory for clerks to send every active registered voter a ballot before the primary and general elections.
An audit of the 2022 midterm elections in Washoe County pointed out the challenges when an increased election workload and a new workforce clash. The audit concluded that the office was understaffed and inexperienced, resulting in poor communication with constituents and expensive mistakes. However, these errors did not impact the election results, including for Senate, House, and governor.
The audit did note that "the collective inexperience and lack of institutional knowledge" led to ballot errors that necessitated a costly ballot reprint.
Since the audit, the registrar's office has staffed up, hiring Burgess and others, and workers have gone through additional training. The office has also installed additional cameras and a floor-to-ceiling glass observation booth for election observers - measures to enhance transparency and protect employees.
Following the stressful experience in 2020 - including frequent wake-ups in the middle of the night and hair loss - Burgess is determined to shield her staff from similar burnout. She's advising them to get enough sleep, use their vacation days, and seek out mental health resources before the busy November period.
"I'm like, you guys, this is a breeze right now," Burgess said. "It's going to get worse."
Burgess maintains that she welcomes questions from community members wanting her to guide them through the election process. Her team has adjusted the ballot counting area so that observers can see more of the equipment directly, instead of relying on live camera streams.
"I'm trying my best to ensure anyone observing our election process can see everything happening," she told CNN. "There's nothing underhanded happening here."
Nevada passes law to protect election workers
The purge of the election office's staff and the other alterations have not convinced the county's number one election critic.
"All they're doing is counting everything in secret and then announcing the winners," Beadles remarked to CNN in an interview.
Regarding the observable areas meant for election observers, Beadles dismissed these as a mockery.
Beadles has advocated for the dismissal of former registrars, one of whom had asserted that threats and harassment were a reason behind leaving. He cursed at another previous registrar, accusing her of treason and insisting that commissioners "either fire her or lock her up."
Nevada's Democratic-led Legislature enacted a law last year - signed into law by Republican Governor Joe Lombardo - that makes it a felony to intimidate or harass election workers with the intent of interfering with their work or retaliating against them, warranting up to four years in prison.
Beadles, who claims never to have harassed an election official, has been fighting against the law since then, labeling it "election suppression."
"When you read it, you'll find that simply inquiring as to why an election worker did something could land you in jail for four years," Beadles expressed. "If you just ask, 'Why did you sort that ballot? Why didn't you check that signature?' They can pin you with a four-year sentence for that."
Burgess, however, interprets the law very differently. She believes that it is a means of shielding her staff from threatening behavior, not from scrutiny - and, by extension, could enable her to keep staff beyond just this election.
"I've told them, and I'll keep telling them, that if someone's yelling at you, just walk away, be courteous," Burgess related. However, if staffers are threatened with harm, "you go ahead and you report that," she stated.
Numerous reports, both nationally and locally, have detailed the escalating threats levied against election workers. Beadles, though, fails to see things the same way.
"Nobody's harassed, intimidated, or assaulted any of these people," he declared.
In response to Beadles' inability to believe that harassment occurs, Burgess expressed understanding.
"I'm so sorry you feel that way, that you believe that," she said. "I was once one who experienced it."
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In the context of Nevada's election scene, the high turnover of election workers nationwide is causing concern, with Washoe County experiencing a complete staff change since the last presidential election. The Deputy registrar, Andrew McDonald, has also joined recently, adding to the new faces in the office.
Facing constant threats and harassment are among the reasons that have led to the departure of many election workers, according to Rachel Orey from the Bipartisan Policy Center. In the specific case of Cari-Ann Burgess, she left her previous position in Minnesota due to job complexity and intimidation, even having to abandon her grocery cart after an altercation with a constituent.
Source: edition.cnn.com
