A new Bipartisan Policy Center study shows turnover among election officials is reaching record highs.

Washington

A recent analysis reveals that local election officials in the United States are departing their roles at the highest rate in at least 25 years. In the most recent presidential election, 41 percent of local officials were new to their positions. The turnover has been steadily rising over the past two decades, with a noticeable acceleration following the 2020 election.

Key factors contributing to this trend include the increasing complexity of election administration, underfunding, and a rise in threats and harassment directed at officials. Smaller jurisdictions have experienced the most consistent increases in turnover, while larger jurisdictions saw a spike after 2020. Experts emphasize the need for greater support for election officials to prevent further attrition and maintain the integrity of the electoral process.

Election officials are leaving their jobs at record pace

Today, California's Governor Gavin Newsom signed a new plan to redraw the state's congressional map. It's Democrats' response to Republicans in Texas creating five new GOP-leaning districts. But as politicians try to change who voters pick, a new study shows those officials charged with actually running the elections are leaving their jobs at a record pace. To help explain why, we're joined by Rachel Orre, Director of the Bipartisan Policy Center's Elections Project. So good to be with you. What is the nature of the turnover and why is it happening, Rachel? So turnover among local election officials, those are the folks responsible for running elections at the local level, has reached its highest point in at least the past 25 years. So to put that into perspective, in the 2024 presidential election, we saw 41 percent of local election officials administering that election for the very first time. What stands out to me about our analysis of turnover, though, is that turnover has been increasing steadily for the past two decades. It's just that after 2020, that turnover rate increased and started to increase more quickly. So the bottom line is that turnover is not a recent or temporary problem. It has roots in longstanding and contemporary challenges. And so we can see that the challenges that election officials have been facing not only in the last five years, but over the last 20, are starting to take a toll. Give us a sense of what some of those challenges are that they face. Yeah. So when trying to understand what is causing election official turnover, I like to think that the causes are multifaceted. So on the one hand, we see the complexity of election administrators' obligations increasing over the past 20 years. As elections modernize and threats evolve, election officials are all now responsible for everything from cybersecurity to fending off threats from foreign adversaries to public communications, on top of all of their old responsibilities, just running a good election. And because of underfunding, that typically means that these new responsibilities have to fall on the same staff without the ability to expand their team. We also know that an unsafe work environment is a big role, as we have threats and harassment against election officials increasing over the last five years. That motivates some folks to leave their role, not to mention the psychological toll of being under the spotlight and being desperately afraid to make a mistake. The report found a large state or a small state or population difference. Where does that come from? So what we have found is that turnover in smaller jurisdictions, so jurisdictions with less than 100,000 voters, has been increasing more steadily over the past two decades. And then we see turnover in those larger jurisdictions. If you think of, like, an L.A. county that has millions of voters, that's where we have seen stable turnover, with an increase after 2020. And to me, that indicates that it's those small jurisdictions where officials tend to be responsible for elections, on top of a bunch of other clerk and recording duties, whether that's being responsible for marriage certificates or managing a cemetery. The amount of time that election administration duties take has increased, so they're seeing more of the responsibility and burnout over time. And in the last five years, the higher rate of turnover in large jurisdictions, those are the place where those officials are really in the spotlight, receiving a lot of scrutiny and threats and harassment. And we have just a little over 20 seconds here, Rachel. What does this mean for elections broadly? Well, we continue to see election officials having long records of experience. So from my perspective, this is a call to action and not a call to resignation. We need to continue supporting the election officials that are there, while making sure that turnover doesn't get worse over time.

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