A new report by Issue One, a bipartisan organization that supports American democracy, has found a high turnover among local election officials around the country, including New Mexico. KUNM spoke with Issue One’s Research Director Michael Beckel, who says since the 2020 presidential election, election officials have been under the spotlight like never before.
MICHAEL BECKEL: The public servants from across the political spectrum who run our elections, are weathering huge amounts of stress, of scrutiny and in many cases, increased threats and harassment that are driving people from this profession in the first place. We did a case study of this alarming nationwide trend, focusing on the western states. In some parts of the country, there are literally hundreds if not 1000s of local election officials in every state but in the West, our team was able to do a census of how many folks are leaving this profession and why they're leaving.
KUNM: And how does that play out in New Mexico?
BECKEL: Of New Mexico's 33 counties, 91% have experienced turnover among chief local election officials in the last five years. So of the state's 33 counties, 91% have experienced turnover among chief local election officials in the last five years. But the bulk of this is because of the term limits that uniquely exist in New Mexico. 76% of the turnover that we've seen in New Mexico was because of term limits, meaning about 25% about a quarter of the turnover that we've seen has been for other reasons, including people resigning for personal reasons, being pushed out, being fired, losing a reelection battle, or even in one case, dying in office. But all of this is to say, you know, turnover in the region, and turnover in New Mexico and turnover in the country is happening because election officials feel under siege.
KUNM: When we're talking about election officials, what sort of roles do they provide?
BECKEL: The chief local election official is the person who is responsible for running elections where you live. This is everything from handling voter registration to managing polling places to counting the ballots on election night. And there are so many dedicated public servants who have great teams in place with tons of bipartisan checks and balances in the processes.
KUNM: Have you heard from folks that are elected officials that have described being threatened or attacked?
BECKEL: We have, our report highlights a number of examples of new measures that many places have had to take. These range from some jurisdictions installing bulletproof glass or panic buttons in their offices, some election administrators have told us that they had to change how they commute to work so they don't take the same route every day, park in different places in the parking lot, you've got very close relationships now being built with law enforcement at the local level to ensure that the people who run our elections, have the safety and have the backup that they need to be able to handle new types of physical threats, physical violence, physical harassment against them. It's a really unfortunate turn of events.
KUNM: So with these high turnover rates, what are states losing from some of these veteran officials that are leaving?
BECKEL: When experienced election administrators hang up their spurs, they take with them invaluable amounts of experience, expertise and institutional knowledge. It takes time, energy and resources to bring new election officials up to speed, and one of the concerns with less experienced people being in these roles is that in the current hyper political environment, small mistakes, even innocuous mistakes, might be falsely interpreted by some as malicious acts when they are far from it, and that's the type of thing that we worry about, that officials who are leaving have immense amounts of institutional knowledge.
KUNM: So this report brought a lot of light to these findings. Does it also provide recommendations?
BECKEL: It does, there are so many ways that state and local jurisdictions can be working to support our chief local election officials. This runs the gamut from investing in robust training, mentorship programs, professional development opportunities. There's a lot of peer to peer learning that can happen, and a lot of these things to build a pipeline to recruit the next generation of poll workers, the next generation of election administrators. There's a number of things that can be done to ensure the resiliency of our election official workforce before the 2026 midterms, and these are people who need our support now more than ever.
Support for this coverage comes from the Thornburg Foundation.
