Increasingly violent threats toward and harassment of public officials — from county clerks up to the president — are driving more and more of those figures out of their jobs, a particular concern among local election officials, who have struggled with attrition for years.
In the years since the 2020 election, roughly 50 percent of top local election officials across 11 western states have left their jobs since November 2020, according to a new report from Issue One, a bipartisan organization that tracks election issues and supports campaign finance reforms.
The election administration world has been grappling with a significant brain drain since the one-two punch of the 2020 pandemic and threats arising from conspiracy theories surrounding that year’s election. But the new report — which focuses on election offices in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming — is particularly concerning because it shows departures haven’t tapered off, marking a 10 percentage point uptick since the group’s 2023 report survey.
The new data on election officials comes at the same time as another report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue — shared first with POLITICO — found a more than 200 percent increase in violent rhetoric toward public officials when comparing Oct. 2021 to Sept. 2022 with Oct. 2024 to Sept. 2025.
Taken together, the two reports portend a potentially bleak future for an American democracy that counts on its engaged citizenry to do everything from count votes to make laws.
“There’s a real problem here,” Institute for Strategic Dialogue CEO Sasha Havlicek told POLITICO, adding that violent rhetoric online is increasingly becoming normalized and accepted. “People feel emboldened to speak in certain ways because of the anonymity of online environments that perhaps wouldn’t mirror the way that they behave in their daily lives.”
Election officials across the country are taking notice and are taking new levels of precaution to protect themselves and their staff.
“It definitely raises some concerns when people are using threatening and violent language and know where I live. And it just takes one, right?” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat who recently faced doxxing and death threats after she paused undercover license plate requests for ICE agents in Maine, told POLITICO last week.
The threats are not limited to members of a particular party. In fact, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found in its report that “Republican leaders, particularly President [Donald] Trump, were disproportionately targeted,” by violent rhetoric and threats.
The July 2024 failed assassination attempt targeting Trump led to a rapid uptick in threats online, according to ISD’s report. And it hasn’t slowed much since.
Republicans have seen a 364 percent uptick in threats online in the time period ISD studied, a number that “far outpaced” the 124 percent increase for Democrats.
Despite repeated calls to tamp down violent rhetoric in the wake of events like Trump’s assassination attempt, there’s often an opposite effect, Havlicek said. “Instead of inspiring some sense of compassion or a deescalation, they do the opposite,” Havlicek said. “Those acts of violence in the real world really push much much more [online] activity in this violent direction, which is quite depressing.”
Taken together, the uptick in violent threats coupled with election officials leaving their posts is worrying elected officials.
“I’m always concerned when people feel like their personal safety is at risk, and when they can’t stand to do a job that they want to do anymore because of circumstances outside of that job, that sucks,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, told POLITICO.
The turnover among election officials is especially high in competitive areas that are subject to the most scrutiny, per Issue One’s report.
Across the West, 80 percent “of counties with close margins in the 2020 presidential election have experienced turnover among their chief local election officials,” while just 40 percent of counties with a margin of 50 percent or more saw turnover.
It’s a problem election officials have long tried to quell. Many officials say that while the departure of longtime officials is concerning, there has been a next generation of workers willing to step up.
In Arizona, where all 15 of the state’s counties have experienced turnover from top election officials since 2020, according to Issue One’s report, Fontes said he is using a fellowship program to bring new blood into election administration.
“Instead of just kind of only being concerned, we’re actually doing stuff about it,” he said.
A version of this article first appeared in POLITICO Pro’s Morning Score. Want to receive the newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories.
