Cari-Ann Burgess, the interim registrar of voters for Nevada’s Washoe County, was the third top elections official the county had seen in four years.
Some of her predecessors left the office under a deluge of harassment and threats. Now, a county spokeswoman said last week that Ms. Burgess has taken a temporary leave because of “stress related health issues.”
Ms. Burgess’s leave highlights the enormous strain election officials across the country have been under since 2020 as a direct result of former President Donald J. Trump’s stolen election lie. And it has thrown a pivotal swing county in a battleground state into a measure of uncertainty with the start of early voting two weeks away and Election Day close behind.
“Is Cari-Ann going to be able to complete the election, or is she not? That unknown creates a lot of anxiety, because you’re worried about her as a person,” said Francisco V. Aguilar, Nevada’s Democratic secretary of state, in an interview. “Second of all, you’re worried about the operation and the voters in Washoe County.”
Mr. Aguilar, who defeated a Trump-backed election denier to win his post in 2022, said Ms. Burgess’s decision last week to step away has helped his office be able to create a “permanent plan” for the administration of November’s election in Washoe. A new interim leader has not yet been appointed.
Bethany Drysdale, a spokeswoman for Washoe County, said Andrew McDonald, deputy registrar of voters, is leading the office. But Mr. Aguilar, along with county officials, expressed concern that the heated environment and pressure on the office’s staff is an untenable situation for the long term.
The Washoe County Board of Commissioners, the elected body that governs Washoe, appointed Ms. Burgess as the interim leader of the elections office in January. The office is in charge of everything from printing ballots to tabulating the votes, nonpartisan and often mundane tasks that have become partisan flash points for Republicans who have sought to undermine confidence in the count.
The board itself is deeply divided over Mr. Trump’s false claims of fraud, and includes a faction of Republicans who attempted to block the certification of local election results once already this year. Mr. Trump and his allies, as part of his efforts to contest the election in closely divided swing states in 2020, pushed county election officials not to finalize results that were unfavorable to him — and voting rights experts and Democrats have worried that county-level delays in certification could sow chaos in 2024.
“It’s a really difficult environment to be leader of that office, when you have election deniers and folks who are personally attacking people and questioning their actions,” said Alexis Hill, chair of the Washoe County Board of Commissioners. Ms. Hill is a Democrat, and up for re-election this year.
Washoe, where just one election staffer remains from 2020, is not alone in experiencing trouble keeping election workers. Eleven of Nevada’s 17 counties, including the state’s largest one, Clark County, have seen turnover among their top election officials since 2020, with some going through multiple administrators during that period. A recent report found that Nevada had the second highest turnover of election officials behind Arizona among Western states.
In Washoe, activists who have zealously embraced Mr. Trump’s false claims of fraud have been particularly vocal, showing up in force at county meetings to yell at county workers and elected officials. There have been reports of death threats and lies spread about local officials. In 2020, President Biden beat Mr. Trump in the county by about 11,000 votes, or four percentage points.
Ms. Drysdale, a spokeswoman for Washoe County, said election employees are leery of filing complaints but she’s heard them talk about being followed to their cars and being confronted at the grocery store by citizens who ask, “Are you trying to steal my vote?”
In Reno, the county’s largest city, Mayor Hillary Schieve, , whose office is nonpartisan and not involved in election administration, said she found a tracker attached to her car. She’s still not sure who did this but said it has led to many sleepless nights and fears for her safety.
“There’s people outside screaming at you as you walk into work. I think the pressure is just immense for the people who have to go through it,” Ms. Schieve said. “I have nothing to do with the election but get wild emails about it. It’s just really alarming. I have confidence in the election but it’s very stressful.”
Some county Republicans, including Washoe County G.O.P. Chair Bruce Parks, suggested that the office couldn’t be trusted. He and other Republicans pointed to reports of printing errors on primary ballots, among other issues they said were indicative of deeper problems that left the vote vulnerable to cheats, despite there being no evidence of widespread fraud in 2020.
He advocated for the results of the presidential election to be hand counted — a process that is widely believed to be slower and more error prone.
“I think every voter should be concerned. Residents here are mad,” he said.
Mr. Aguilar cited a local primary earlier this year, overseen by Ms. Burgess’s office and where Republican members of the Washoe county board attempted to block the certification of the results, as an example of how contentious the work of election administration had become, and a worrying sign for the future.
In races for county school board and county commissioner, losing candidates requested recounts, which they are permitted to do so long as they pay for them. Robert Beadles, a wealthy political activist and supporter of Mr. Trump, paid for these efforts. He previously funded a recount in the 2022 Republican primary for governor, and bankrolled the political campaigns of election deniers.
At first, the Washoe County Board of Commissioners in a 3-2 vote declined to certify the outcome of the recounts, which upheld the original winner in both cases. Eventually two of the Republican no votes came around, after it was made clear to the commissioners by the local district attorney that they were legally obligated to certify the recount.
Mr. Aguilar even went so far as to ask the Nevada Supreme Court to require that the commissioners certify the election — a lawsuit that was moot and dismissed once the board reversed its decision.
The episode emphasized the stakes of who controls this local government body, Mr. Aguilar said. He argued that Ms. Hill’s re-election is essential “because if we lose that majority of sensible leadership, we’re in trouble statewide.”
Ms. Burgess didn’t comment for this article, but told a local radio station over the summer: “There’s days that I go home, and I just cry.”
Despite Ms. Burgess’s leave, Mr. Aguilar and several other local elected officials and observers of the office expressed confidence that the election would be administered well. The size of the registrar of voters staff has nearly doubled in the past four years and new steps have been taken to speed up ballot counting and bring more transparency to the process, according to Ms. Drysdale.
“When unexpected changes like this come up this close to the election, it’s worrying,” said Jennifer Willett — the Reno-based senior campaign manager for All Voting is Local, which promotes voting access in the main battleground states.
“But I meet with the office regularly, and I think the election is in good hands.”
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