Nearly 2 million people in Nevada are registered voters, and each of Nevada 16 counties has registrars whose job is to ensure those voters cast ballots efficiently and accurately.
Most of them in some way or another has faced a scrum of voters who believe that the 2020 election was stolen, and that the voting system was somehow rigged.
Now, more than half of those people are leaving their jobs, according to former Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske. One of them is Joe Gloria, who had been the registrar of Clark County, the most populous in the state, since June 2013.
Elections are massive undertakings for Clark County. Gloria, who joined the county’s election office in 1995, said in the past six or seven years, “things have been a little unique.” Since 2016, his office had been implementing a new voting system, and after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, they briefly implemented all-mail voting.
“We also have to take care of making sure that we're looking at our processes in between elections, and do everything we can to make things better, from election to election, and make sure that our staff are properly trained,” Gloria recently told State of Nevada host Joe Schoenmann. “And we're looking at polling places, those that do well from election to election and ensuring that our early voting program stays in place.”
By election day, he said they’re in support mode.
“We're taking advantage of the response plans that we had in case we do have issues, because we never have a perfect election,” he said.
What’s next for him? A new job at Election Center, which is a nonpartisan group that does election research, hosts educational conferences and trains election officials. He was recently named the group’s CEO of operations. That means he’ll be setting up the nationwide conferences and provide input for legislative lobbying at the federal and state level.
And he’s not the first election official in Nevada to leave their post. Washoe County’s registrar, Deanna Spikula, resigned last year, citing fears of violence from people who believed without evidence that the 2020 election was fraudulent.
“What they put her through was unfair,” Gloria said, but he also faced harassment. By the 2022 election, his office had taken steps to increase security for their staff. It wasn’t in response to a specific threat, but rather a proactive move considering the events of 2020. “I think that made a huge difference in what we saw here,” he said.
In 2020, Gloria gained some national notoriety after a man went behind Gloria during a press conference screaming about the election while wearing a T-shirt that said “BBQ, Beer and Freedom.” It wasn’t wanted attention.
“That was definitely a unique time,” he said. “It takes quite a bit to get me riled, so to speak, and he didn’t appear to be threatening … it put us on a map down here.”
It took several days for the 2020 election to be fully counted, which added fuel to the fire in person and online.
“I couldn't move faster, even if I wanted to,” Gloria said, and he said that at the time, too. “And a lot of folks weren't taking into consideration that we had turned what was normally an in-person voting county through early voting and Election Day, and completely flipped that by sending mail ballots to all voters, which was a huge undertaking for my staff.”
In what was supposed to be a celebrated year, he said, they were met with a mess of disinformation.
“We've always worked very hard here in Clark County, and partnered with the state every time we have an odd-year legislative session to provide more access, but at the same time work to uphold the integrity of what we do. So one should not suffer as a result of the other. And I think we've done a good job of balancing that in the state of Nevada,” he said of the state’s voting access.
What advice would he give to his successor?
“You need to be patient in your processes, you need to rely on the language as it's written and adhere to it. And in doing so, that in itself upholds the integrity of what you're doing,” he offered. “And those who know elections when they see that, they appreciate it. I've had a large number of people who've contacted me since they learned that I was retired and they've expressed their sentiments and appreciated that I was always upfront and straightforward with the things that I said; I just tried to be honest. And I tried to work with the legislature to tell them what we need in order to do what they'd like to move forward. And that's been a huge success for me, and I think it would be for whoever takes my place.”
Guest: Joe Gloria, former registrar, Clark County
