RENO, Nev. ‒ Deanna Spikula lasted five years but quit amid relentless harassment, baseless accusations of treason, and death threats.
Her replacement lasted just over 500 days- and quit a few weeks after someone sent fentanyl-laced envelopes to her colleagues.

Now it's Cari-Ann Burgess' turn in the crucible known as the Washoe County Registrar of Voters office, where every one of the 18 people who worked there during the 2020 election has since quit. Statewide, almost every election administrator has left in the past 3½ years.

"You have to be somewhat crazy to do what we do," said Burgess, who in January began serving as the county's interim chief elections official. "The negative publicity, the harassment."

A similar pattern is playing out nationally, with tens of thousands of longtime elections workers harassed out of their jobs by a small cadre of self-appointed voting experts and critics who have hounded clerks to switch to paper ballots, demanded hand-counted results, and insisted they be allowed to participate in ways that are normally barred specifically because they can introduce errors.

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Election workers at the Washoe County Registrar of Voters office speak with interim Registrar Cari-Ann Burgess during February's presidential primary in Nevada.

"It's not that turnover is something new," said Tammy Patrick, CEO for programs at the National Association of Election Officials. "What's new is the scope of it, the depth of it, the scale of it. Those who have left the field, it's understandable. A person can only take so much."