By james art RENO, Nev. (AP) — One morning last month, Carrie-Ann Burgess did something completely unremarkable: She made a quick stop at a coffee shop on her way to work.
For Burgess, the top election official in a northern Nevada county, such exits can be uncertain. While waiting for hot tea and a breakfast sandwich, an older woman approached.
“She kept telling me that I should be ashamed of myself — that I’m a disgrace, I’m a disgrace to Washoe County, and I should crawl into a hole and die,” Burgess said in an interview with The Associated Press the next day.
There would no longer be a morning stop at the cafeteria. It was added to a growing list of things Burgess no longer does because of his job. She had already stopped shopping for groceries and other necessities. Food is eaten at home. If she and her husband were eating out or shopping, they would travel an hour away from their Reno neighborhood.
“I go to work, come home and go to church — that’s it,” Burgess said. “Now I’m very careful about where I go.”
Still, Burgess said he’s looking forward to November and watching the presidential election with his team in Nevada’s second-most populous district. That ended one day in late September when she was invited to a meeting with county officials.
The district said Burgess requested medical leave to deal with stress and listed her departure as a personnel matter. In a statement, the county said it was “focused on conducting a smooth and fair election.”
Burgess said she was forced out after she refused to agree to staffing changes requested by the county manager’s office. She said she repeatedly begged to stay, even provided a doctor’s note vouching for her health and hired a lawyer.
Overseeing the office now is Burgess’s deputy — the fifth person in four years to lead the county’s election operation. All staff are new since 2020. Turnover is one symptom of a district that has been tightly divided politically and has been subject to election conspiracy theories since Republican Donald Trump lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Burgess, in his first public remarks since his sudden departure, told the AP last week that he was worried about his team and didn’t know what to do next. She even postponed the vote, saying it was a reminder that she was no longer part of a process she loved.
“I gave 110% of who I was, who I am to this job. And then all of a sudden I come out and I don’t understand,” Burgess said as he considered his next steps. “I don’t understand how we got here.”
“I had no idea what we were getting into”
AP reporters were in Reno in September, a week before she left, and spent several days with Burgess, which included time at the Washoe County elections office and at her home. As with those before her, Burgess and her team were on a roll under pressure, under fire at public meetings and forced to answer conspiracy-fueled claims about voting machines, boxes and electoral rolls.
Working with elected county committee members who do not believe in elections made the job even more difficult.
Burgess was an extreme example of the kinds of challenges local election officials in the United States face after four years of false claims that undermined public trust in elections and those who run them. Election officials have faced harassment and even death threats and have taken extra security measures this year, which include adding bullet-proof glass and panic buttons.
In the three days the AP spent with Burgess, she gave no indication that she planned to quit her job. She talks at length about how she deals with stress for herself, her family and her staff.
“I didn’t think I’d be where I am now — so front and center and a hotbed for this election, but I’m grateful,” Burgess said, sitting in her living room surrounded by inspirational Bible passages and Christian symbols. “I am grateful for the opportunity. I am grateful to be able to serve my country again.”
On one wall hung a decorative sign that read, “God doesn’t give us what we can handle, God helps us handle what we’re given.”
At home Friday night, Burgess sat down to dinner with her husband and a close friend she considers a brother. Her husband’s prayer during the meal included a plea for Burgess and her team to be safe.
“I had no idea what we were getting into, but I know it’s something that’s very important to Carrie. She loves her job,” Shane Burgess said after the dinner. “Sometimes I want to join the fight, but I know she can handle it on her own.”
Later, Burgess and her husband discussed plans for the weekend. Burgess wanted to take her husband, a baseball fan, to see Reno’s minor league team, the Aces, play before the season ended.
“Not if they’re going to yell at you,” Shane Burgess told his wife as they sat side by side in matching chairs.
Burgess tried to reassure her husband: “I can wear a hat.”
In the end they decided not to go.
“I cannot but serve my country”
The Washoe County Elections Office is located in a complex of government buildings a few miles north of downtown Reno. Burgess’ office before she left was decorated with American flags, a copy of the U.S. Constitution and red, white and blue decorative stars that spell out freedom, liberty and America.
“Election Heroes Work Here,” read a sign outside her office door.
She was the fourth person to lead Washoe County’s elections office since 2020, appointed interim registrar of voters in January on a 3-2 vote by the county commission. Although her entire office was new, Burgess said she was impressed with how well the staff performed amid all the pressure of working in a high-stress environment.
“I have a great staff who all have their roles and who do their jobs to perfection,” Burgess said.
In some parts of the US, local election officials, exhausted by the harassment and demands of the job, are retiring or leaving the profession altogether. Even Burgess had stopped running after being harassed publicly by people upset that Trump had lost the 2020 election, even though he easily won the Minnesota district where she was working at the time.
After that election, she moved to North Carolina and was working at an ice cream shop on the beach when she felt called to return to the polls while watching fireworks on the Fourth of July.
“I thought, I can’t not serve my country the way I do,” she said. “And coming from an election and knowing an election, I think it’s something I can get back into. I can make elections again.”
“Front line of democracy”
Arriving in Washoe County, where the Sierra Nevada transitions to the high desert, Burgess encountered a county mired in voting conspiracy theories.
County meetings are often delayed by members of the public who opposed Burgess’ hiring and who want the county to count the votes because they don’t trust the voting equipment.
“It feels like you’re on the front line, but it’s a different front line. This is the front line of democracy, not the front line of battle,” Burgess said. “But the way the country is divided right now, it feels like a battle because every day you’re fighting some kind of misinformation.”
Burgess said a commission vote earlier this year to refuse to certify two runoffs from state primaries hurt morale in the election office. Afterward, she said, two employees were in tears. There were no major problems during the voting and no errors in the counting of votes, she said. As the commission came under increasing public pressure, it eventually relented and voted to certify.
Each morning when office assistant Shauna Johnson arrives, she updates the whiteboard with the latest early voting counts and Election Day on November 5. On that day they were 28 days and 45 days respectively.
She also adds another: “95 days until Christmas.”
“We know what our focus is — we get to early voting and then we get to Election Day,” Johnson said. “But you have to look forward to what happens after all this. We will be able to return to our normal lives, regular working hours, being at home with our families, celebrating holidays.”
A few days before her departure, Burgess had appointed a consultant to conduct stress management training for staff. This includes the importance of taking regular breaks, getting enough sleep and building a support network of friends and family.
“Knowing that I’ve been traumatized since 2020 and that I have PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), I don’t want that to happen to my team,” Burgess said. “They deserve better. They deserve to know how to take care of themselves.”
At one point, Burgess reminded his team to take a break because everyone would be working weekends starting the first week of October.
Personally, Burgess acknowledged that furloughs for her staff would likely mean more work for her. In the two months before the election, she expected to work 1 p.m.
“If they can’t be there, I have to be,” Burgess said. “There is so much that needs to be done in one election.”
“It’s not in me to leave something I love”
Among the many things Burgess had to do were security improvements at the electoral office.
Across the nation, personal safety and election office security have become major concerns amid threats and harassment of poll workers.
Soon after Burgess said she was harassed at the cafe, she visited to discuss security measures to be implemented ahead of the November election. Among the recommendations was putting a film over the glass windows that could slow but not stop the bullets.
“That’s when I realized I had a much more dangerous job than I actually expected. It should never, ever be like this,” Burgess said.
For the most part, Burgess said she kept those concerns to herself. She said she wants her team to focus on conducting smooth and secure elections. This included making sure the interviewers were well trained.
On the day of the cafe incident, Burgess remembers that after she finished work, she closed the door to her office and turned off the lights. She sat on the sofa in her office and prayed for comfort and strength.
“I can go somewhere else where it’s a lot easier,” Burgess said. “I can completely give up the election. It’s not in me. It is not in me to leave something I love.”
Less than a week later, she left, a decision she said was made for her. And Washoe County would once again have someone else in charge of elections.
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