Arizona election official, a target of threats, trains a new generation as he retires

Bill Gates, an election official in Arizona, revealed in 2023 that he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress from the threats that came along with his job.

But he doesn’t want to focus on that. The soon-to-be retired Maricopa county supervisor wants to talk about his new role, training the next generation of elections officials.

“I don’t love how every article, and I know this one will too, says ‘Bill Gates has been diagnosed with PTSD.’ I don’t want to be known by this experience that I’ve had, but I think it’s too important, and I don’t regret it for a second that I did tell this story,” he said.

Gates oversees elections as part of a five-member board in Maricopa county, Arizona – the state’s largest county, which includes Phoenix and is known for close elections and election denialism.

Gates, a Republican, decided not to run for the board again, and his term ends early next year. But he won’t be leaving elections entirely. He will help start a new lab at Arizona State University (ASU) to focus on elections and democracy issues, called the Mechanics of Democracy Laboratory. He will help teach current and hopeful election administrators, with the goal to start a degree or certificate program. The lab will also host events and trainings on these issues, in a county where the threats to democracy aren’t soon fading away.

Related: US election officials face ‘new era’ of violent threats, taskforce chief warns

“There’s no better place to do it than in Maricopa county, where so much of this has gone down,” he said.

He’s one of many elections officials who have faced a rise in threats and harassment since 2020. After Joe Biden won the 2020 election in Arizona and again after Donald Trump-allied candidates lost key races statewide in 2022, Gates faced harassment and threats. One person who threatened to poison him was sentenced to three years of probation earlier this year. The threats factored into, but were not the deciding factor, in Gates’s decision not to seek another term.

Maricopa county’s board of supervisors and recorder’s office will see several officials leave their positions, either by choice or through electoral losses. Four of the five board members and the recorder are all Republicans who stood up to pressure campaigns to overturn the results by Trump and his allies after 2020. Already, community members have shown harassing behavior at board meetings this election cycle, leading to increased security measures.

Gates says he often hears from people seeking jobs running elections, a field that in decades past has been one people fell into.

“This is the opportunity to really take the spark of interest that’s out there, and really germinate it and help develop it into a great career for people, because it really is,” he said. “Everyone who’s in elections loves it, not withstanding the challenges of the past few years.”

Related: Secure cages and Swat teams: Arizona county’s drastic steps to protect the vote

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What factors went into your decision to retire now?

After 15 years between Phoenix city council and the board of supervisors, that’s a lot of time in elected office, and especially after our experience the last four years. It was kind of a remarkable run and to work on such important issues, you do have to know, OK, this is the right time to move on.

It has been reported that I’m running away because of death threats or whatever, and that’s simply not the case. It’s a lot more complicated decision-making than just that. But I’m very at peace with my decision and excited.

Did the threats or the harassment, or just the constant scrutiny, did any of that play a role in wanting to move on?

I wouldn’t be fair to say that it didn’t play any role, because certainly, being an elected official at the local level in Maricopa county has changed a lot in the last 15 years. So I would say it was a factor, but it wasn’t the driving factor or the deciding factor.

Do you ever get sick of talking about all of the threats? Does that weigh on you, having to continue to go through it as you talk to reporters or other people?

I don’t get sick of it, because I think it’s important that we talk about it, that people are aware of it. It’s important that we not normalize this. I am concerned, though, that sometimes, I don’t want that to always be the story. I want the story to be about our elections team and the great work that they’re doing, or maybe identifying certain things that we want to make sure people are aware of.

Probably the number one issue that we’re looking at for our November general election is the fact that our ballot is going to be on two pages, so actually two sheets of paper. And so we want to make sure that people understand that going into it, that they basically budget the time needed to review all of these. I just want to make sure that those types of messages are not getting lost.

You had decided to be open about the PTSD that came with the threats. Why did you make that decision?

It was not an easy decision to make, but I knew that there were hundreds, if not thousands, of elections officials across the country who are dealing with the same issues. And elections administrators, elections officials generally, are people who keep their head down, they don’t want to be part of the story, and I’m very grateful for that, I think that’s important. But I also thought that by raising my voice, others who are involved in this would see that and maybe say, hey, you know, I’m experiencing those same things, get a little bit of strength from that.

And then also, we can’t normalize this. I deal with this. Other elections officials have dealt with this for years, and sometimes you feel like everyone else knows – they don’t.

But look, honestly, I don’t love how every article, and I know this one will too, says ‘Bill Gates has been diagnosed with PTSD.’ I don’t want to be known by this experience that I’ve had, but I think it’s too important, and I don’t regret it for a second that I did tell this story. I was really speaking to others in elections, but I’ve been overwhelmed by the number of people who’ve reached out to me and shared the trauma that they’ve experienced in other professional environments, some of them certainly your more traditional folks, veterans or first responders, but even people who have experienced trauma in the workplace in a corporate environment, that this resonated for some reason, and they reached out to me.

It seems like that will play into what you’re doing at ASU, like the threat environment, but then also this idea of how we move forward.

Yeah, most definitely. God willing, we’ll move on from this, and there’ll be a time when this will be a memory, but I hope that these stories can live on. People need to know that this happened in our country so that hopefully we can keep it from ever happening again.

Why should people want to work in elections right now?

There’s been no better time to get into elections administration. People know how important it is, how democracy really depends on it and having good people in it. If you want to make a lot of money, I don’t recommend it, it’s not the profession – but if you want to make a difference at the most fundamental level of democracy, this is the place to do it.

Do you still identify as a Republican?

I do. Yes. This is my party, the party I joined in the late 1980s, and I have no intention of leaving it, even though the priorities of many elected officials of the party are not those that I have, and certainly not those that I brought to this party when I joined it. But I’m not leaving.

The work you’re going to be doing at ASU is one part of a solution to election denialism. But what else can be done?

People need to understand, elected officials and people who are working in politics, that either raising money or maybe even getting votes in the short term off of pushing election conspiracies will, long-term, continue to do great harm to our system, and our system can’t take that. It’s going to require some responsibility by those in office.

If we think that we’re going to go back to the way things used to be in two years, that’s not realistic. There’s been too much damage that’s been done to the trust that people have in our system. So that’s why I think this is the best way that I can spend my time, by working with that next generation, educating them, and not only the next generation, but even those who might be a little more seasoned, who choose to come to Arizona State University to take a class and learn more about the system. It’s a long-term effort to continue to debunk and, in some cases, pre-bunk the conspiracies, because with information, I think that can only help to improve the situation.