By james art 
Election workers collect ballots from a newly installed ballot drop box outside the Multnomah County Elections Department office Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in Portland, Oregon. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
RENO, Nev. – Andrew McDonald joined the staff of the Washoe County Clerk of Voters five months ago, not fully realizing what he was getting himself into.
Since then, he’s witnessed the county board’s refusal to certify primary election results, an attempted civil arrest of a board member, a major mistake that sent 20,000 ballots in the mail to inactive voters, and an announcement that his boss would just be taking a leave of absence weeks before the November election, leaving him temporarily in charge.
In a volatile region of a volatile state — Washoe is home to Reno, one of Nevada’s largest cities — MacDonald struggles seven days a week, dealing with a daily flood of misinformation and baseless allegations of wrongdoing, trying to hold it together for their staff.
Somehow, the 48-year-old thinks it’s working.
As the clock ticks toward Election Day, election professionals are under historic pressure to get everything right: to provide transparency so that suspicious members of the public can see how it all works; to count the ballots without error; to protect the rights of legally registered voters while ensuring that no one who does not qualify participates. It’s a nearly impossible task, made even more difficult by low pay and a constant stream of threats and harassment, mostly from supporters of former President Donald Trump who believe his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
Turnover among election officials is at new highs, with the leadership of more than a third of election offices changing hands in the past four years, according to research released this year by the Bipartisan Policy Center. In a survey by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, more than a third of election officials reported threats or other forms of abuse on the job.
“Election workers have faced an unprecedented level of scrutiny, fury and attacks,” said Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center. “They responded wonderfully to these challenges.”
Some are working day and night with testing machines, processing mail-in ballots, manning early voting locations and answering questions from the public. They say their No. 1 job is to protect the vote. Their #1 hope is that regardless of the outcome, the public will look back and believe that the 2024 election was free, fair and secure.
So far, their work seems to be paying off: At least 64 million Americans have cast ballots across the country in early voting, with relatively few significant problems.
“I feel very optimistic,” McDonald said during a recent interview at the government complex in Reno, which serves a population of nearly 500,000 in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range near the California line. “We have a great staff here.”
It was Saturday, but the office was humming as at least two dozen employees did the heavy lifting in mid-October of an election year. Bowls of Halloween candy and twinkling decorations set the festive mood, punctuated by the thump-thump of a giant ballot sorter making test runs in the next room.
The day had started, as it has all this month, including weekends, with a standing staff meeting – an informal moment of encouragement and words of thanks for a team that McDonald admits is greener than it needs to be. MacDonald is not only new to the job, but also the current No. 2. Together, they oversaw the implementation of a new statewide election management system, as well as a new pick-up truck-sized ballot sorter.
“We have all this new technology,” he said. “The staff here has literally been on the job for two years or less. These are the things that keep me up at night.
Some of the pressure on election officials rose to the level of news headlines: Pro-Trump activists falsely accused election officials in North Carolina of using the destruction of Hurricane Helena to enforce rules designed to steal the election on behalf of Vice President Kamala Harris. Last week at an early voting location in San Antonio, a voter punched an employee who asked him to remove his MAGA hat. (Like most states, Texas bans campaign slogans at polling places. Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, called another voter a “patriot” for objecting to a similar rule in New Jersey.)
Other pressures are less visible. Nicole Steffi, clerk in rural White Pine County, Nevada, population 10,000, said she will likely resign after this election cycle because the pressure of the job after 14 years has become too much. She regularly fields questions filled with unfounded suspicions from voters and elected officials. Her board of commissioners barred her from participating in a state ballot contract because members didn’t trust the officials overseeing it, even though going it alone was more expensive. She hasn’t received a raise in 10 years, she said.
“This year has been so hard for all of us,” Steffy said. “Like hard to influence our health.”
Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar (D), who oversees the state’s elections, recently visited White Pine on a two-day tour aimed at boosting election office morale. Starting in Las Vegas before dawn on a recent Saturday and ending in Reno the following afternoon, he stopped at three rural polling stations along the state’s eastern border – in White Pine, Lincoln and Eureka counties. He voiced concerns, answered questions and offered support. Between the lines were gentle reminders to follow the law and protect against misinformation.
The three counties Aguilar visited are heavily conservative, with between 78 and 88 percent of voters voting for Trump four years ago. All have residents, and in some cases elected officials, who mistakenly believe Joe Biden stole the 2020 election. Recorders in those communities have borne the brunt of such suspicions, with hostile questions and accusations of wrongdoing.
In White Pine, Steffy showed Aguilar the new county courthouse where early voting takes place – a significant security upgrade over the previous facility. She also showed him the patchwork warehouse where the voting machines are kept, explaining that she had received the green light from the county to improve security with new doors and cameras.
Like most election administrators, Steffi said residents bombard her with questions and misinformation, but because the community is small, she tries to address their concerns one at a time.
“When somebody says something like, ‘How are you going to verify this signature?'” – You know, I invite them to look at the screen I’m looking at,” she said. “I show them exactly the signature elements that we match to make sure everything is right. And they always feel better if you just take the time to listen to them, acknowledge their concerns and address them.”
In Lincoln, County Clerk Lisa Lloyd showed Aguilar where she kept her election equipment – in the basement of the courthouse, in one of three jail cells, which she opened with an old-fashioned brass key. Lincoln County spans 10,000 square miles, and some voters in the most remote parts must drive more than 100 miles to vote if they prefer not to vote by mail.
“Right now you’re taking care of our democracy,” Aguilar told Lloyd.
At his third stop, in Eureka County, Aguilar checked in with Clerk Kathy Bowling, who had just finished accuracy tests on her voting equipment the day before. One of the community’s most vocal election skeptics has asked to participate in the process, Bowling said. So were you convinced the system was secure?
“Well, that was her second time,” Bowling said. “And I haven’t heard from her again.”
Back in Washoe, Aguilar said he’s optimistic county commissioners won’t repeat after the general election their efforts over the summer to block primary certification.
A local pro-Trump activist has requested and paid for recounts, one in a school board race and the other for a county commission seat, claiming the contests were marred by fraud. The hand count changes the results in each race by one vote, not enough to change the outcome. The activist insisted the results were tainted, and the three Republicans on the five-member panel refused to certify. However, one of those Republicans quickly backed out after Aguilar’s office filed a lawsuit.
During its meetings, the commission regularly floats numerous election conspiracy theories. In September, a frequent speaker named Nicholas St. John became so agitated while trying to present data that he falsely claimed to be showing voting machines switching votes, that the meeting was stopped and law enforcement was called. St. John called for the civil arrest of the chairwoman.
That same month, the district announced that interim secretary Carrie-Ann Burgess would be taking a stress-related leave of absence. Most recently, Burgess told The Associated Press that she had been ordered to take a leave of absence.
Even before saying that, MacDonald avoided talking about Burgess’ departure, other than to say that her situation, like his own, was “a lot for anyone to handle.”