Many election officials across the country have resigned since the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 insurrection because of harassment and intimidation, according to The Brennan Center, a nonpartisan law and policy institute.
Earlier this year, the Department of Justice’s Election Threats Task Force announced it was investigating dozens of threats against election workers around the country and already convicted 13 people.
Clark County Registrar of Voters Lorena Portillo, whose office is located in southern Nevada, is new to her post. She became the registrar in March 2023.
“Safety is a grave concern,” Portillo said. “We know what happened in 2020 and we learned from it.”
Many states have implemented programs that allow poll workers to send a text message that simultaneously notifies an election official, the secretary of state’s office, and law enforcement of any danger at a voting location, according to The Brennan Center.
In southern Arizona, Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly is also relatively new, having been elected to her post in November 2020. Her office has joined a group called the Western Leaders Network, which has conducted training sessions on many scenarios including death threats and “swatting” incidents, where police are sent to a location following a report of a violent incident that turns out to be false.
“Some people are angry for the sake of being angry and they don't want to hear the truth,” said Cázares-Kelly. “They're coming up with big accusations and a lot of it just isn't accurate.”
She said it’s extremely frustrating for workers who are working hard to follow the law and all security procedures to protect the integrity of the ballot.
Portillo advises voters to become more informed about the system and its safeguards if they are doubtful or uncertain.
She said every election worker undergoes rigorous training. And when it comes to signature verification, if the automatic sorting system kicks out a signature, the signature is reviewed by a bipartisan team.
“Nevada law also requires them to be a bipartisan team,” Portillo said. “So it's not just one person verifying, it's a party of two,” Portillo said. “It’s important for voters to understand it is something that is very important to us and is very secure because we have systems in place that verifies a signature and we just do not just accept the mail ballot envelope and say, this is good to go.”
While everyone wants instant results as soon as polls close, Portillo said each state has specific procedures and timelines to meet before the votes are considered “officially counted.”
“Up to Saturday, we're getting postmarked mail ballots and processing them Monday after the election,” she said. “Folks are ‘curing' signatures and Tuesday, the provisional ballots are being posted. So there's still processes happening. Then, we start reconciling. Things happen very fast in those 10 days, but the official results happen the 10th day.
“And so it may seem that Nevada is going really, really slow. But we are a big focus in the nation and we understand where we lie when it comes to folks watching us and making sure we provide those results as soon as possible. And we want accuracy over everything.”
If there is a silver lining, Cázares-Kelly said it's that the public now recognizes the importance of a voting process that used to be mostly behind the scenes.
"One silver lining to the scrutiny that election officials are under is that it has highlighted the importance of our profession and elections, and the opportunity for investment and increased funding," she said. "We have to think about long-term investments, increasing pay for election workers and dedicated funding for location-based needs."
Cazares-Kelly, the first Native American to hold her position in Pima County, said election denialism and the insurrection have had a profound impact on the American voting system, adding that doubt in the system is the new normal and that "the face of elections has changed permanently".
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio (KNPR) in Las Vegas, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
