CNN —
A wave of departures by election officials in key states risks adding new stress to the nation’s election system ahead of next year’s presidential contest, voting rights groups and several state election chiefs warn.
The growing alarm over the resignations and retirements comes as officials say election workers continue to face a barrage of threats and harassment and partisan interference in their duties, first ignited by false claims of a stolen White House election in 2020.
In one region alone – across 11 Western states – more than 160 top local election officials have left their positions since November 2020, according to a regional case study by Issue One, a nonprofit watchdog group tracking the departures. In the counties with new election chiefs in those states, the typical level of experience has dropped from about eight years to one, the analysis found.
In the battleground state of Arizona – which became a hotbed for election falsehoods after Joe Biden flipped the traditional GOP stronghold by a little more than 10,000 votes – 12 of the state’s 15 county election chiefs have departed since the 2020 election, including one whose dogs were poisoned as a “means of intimidation,” said Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat elected last year.
Other parts of the country are seeing a similar brain drain.
In Pennsylvania – another presidential battleground – nearly 70 county election directors or assistant directors in at least 40 of the state’s 67...
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