Counting votes is now a dangerous job: how it feels for frontline, swing-state workers

(This story has been updated because an earlier version included an inaccuracy.)

Casting a ballot on Election Day has always been the backbone of democracy. It was also the snooziest.

Behind every polling station in school cafeterias to public libraries to the YMCA down Main Streets all over the country, tens of thousands of election officials, poll workers and watchers and volunteers have long ensured the process is accessible, transparent and accurate.

Delightful. Dull. And yet profoundly American.

But a once-monotonous job ? counting votes ? has become dangerous.

After former President Donald Trump lost in 2020, he has refused to accept the outcome, falsely casting the results as fraud and the election as stolen. This message has been amplified by conspiracy theorists who have peddled claims that the use of machines to count ballots allows results to be rigged. Election workers have been intimidated and threatened.

With new widespread attention to how elections are run, USA TODAY Network reporters spent time with election workers from Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia.

This is what they told us.

Pennsylvania | Nevada | North Carolina | Arizona | Wisconsin | Michigan | Georgia

Testing the machines in Chester County, Pennsylvania

Chester County, Pennsylvania, Voter Services Director Karen Barsoum pops down to the equipment center in the basement of the county’s government services center at least twice a day to check in with staff doing logic and accuracy testing on vote tabulators ahead of early voting and Election Day. It gives her a chance to see how the process of checking that every machine and its parts can properly display the ballot, collect votes, and tabulate results is going, and to answer any questions from the public observing the tests.

When testing began on Oct. 7, a large group of local citizens had gathered to watch the process. Barsoum spent two and a half hours answering questions.

By Friday at 1 p.m. just one woman was there. She had no questions.

For many years it was normal to have no public observers show up for the machine testing at all, Barsoum said.

“I see this as an opportunity where people become actively engaged, want to know the process from a trusted source, and take time out of their daily life to actually come and do that,” Barsoum said.

Her staff tests each part of the tabulators, which scan in the ballot results, allow voters to check their vote was accurately recorded and then preserves the paper ballot in a locked bin for hand recounts. Testing includes clearing the USB media stick used to transfer the results to the main vote tabulation center on election night. Staff follow a checklist and are only allowed to use purple and green pens, colors that the machines don’t recognize so that they can’t make any marks that might be counted. Less than two rows of machines remained Friday.

Once testing is complete, the tabulator is sealed, zip-tied shut and stored in rows along the wall until moved to polling locations.

Upstairs, the lobby leading into the Voter Services office is full of citizens filling out voter registration forms and asking questions. Her team will work over the weekend processing the voter registration forms and conducting training for 400 poll workers. A white board full of what is left to accomplish in the next few weeks takes up a wall of her office.

Barsoum spent the morning welcoming poll workers at a deescalation and crisis training that was held at West Chester University.

After a stop in the supply room where all the materials to set up and run a polling location wait in individually labeled cubbies, Barsoum will spend the afternoon responding to public requests and getting status updates from the teams in her office working to prepare hardware, train poll workers, process voter registration and interact with the public. She hopes to leave the office by 6 p.m. but knows there is a good chance she’ll check emails in her driveway for an hour before going inside her home. With three weeks before Election Day, she’ll try to stop answering emails or texts by 11 p.m. in order to grab a little sleep.

“From the last moment that I lay my phone down until the first time that I pick it up again, I think there's six hours in between,” she said.

– Sarah D. Wire in West Chester, Pennsylvania

In Nevada's swing county, official worries about getting results

As a former mortgage broker, Michael Clark is accustomed to paper trails. So, he's frustrated by how elections are being run in Washoe County, where he's one of five county commissioners.

With a mix of rural voters and the urban Reno area, Washoe is a swing county in a swing state. Clark said he's been inundated with concerns, including the reliability of the county's vote-counting machines, voter ID verification and demands for hand counts. Multiple public hearings have drawn angry activists to the commissioner's meeting room in Reno. Those concerns began in earnest during the 2020 race, he said, and county elections officials have done little to reassure him ever since.

A missing name from a sample ballot. Misspelled names in other places. An estimated 26,000 ballots mailed out to voters who had moved.

Clark said that if a bank lost $10 of a customer's money, "heads would roll."

"There is this is unbelievable tension in this country, and we're in the spotlight here," Clark said. "We're front and center, we're the swing county in the swing state, and we're looking like the Keystone Cops here."

The county's top election official left abruptly in late September, later telling The Associated Press she was "forced out" after refusing to make personnel changes requested by the county manager's office.

Clark himself has helped create some of the uncertainty. Earlier this year he and two other commissioners ? both Republicans, like Clark ? initially refused to certify the results of the county's primary election. The Nevada attorney general accused them of making "vague, unsubstantiated claims of election fraud and unreliable data or procedures."

Clark doesn't claim Trump's 2020 loss was due to fraud. But he said the Washoe election department's track record of "just plain incompetence" fails to inspire confidence.

Come Election Day, Clark said he's preparing to not know the results of the races, at least in Washoe County, for possibly days. He said he understands that results aren't final for weeks afterward, but there should be regular data releases following poll closures to help the public see how their candidates fared.

"Part of that reasonable expectation is if ... somebody was way behind and then all of a sudden they surged to the top of the heap, then somebody might say, 'How the heck did that happen? Doesn't look like it could happen, and statistically that looks like an anomaly,'" he said.

Critics have argued that Clark and others in his county are misleading voters and laying the groundwork for refusing to accept the 2024 election results.

The example of a surge of support for one candidate, for instance, is often the result of elections workers counting in-person votes first, and then tallying up mail ballots. If one candidate's voters primarily cast ballots in person, and the others mostly use mail ballots, the changing outcome after election night isn't evidence of an irregularity.

"The end goal here is chaos. It's so easy to create a chaotic environment, so that people will believe that it happened," Tammy Patrick, CEO for programs at the National Association of Election Officials, said of Trump supporters' efforts nationally to inject uncertainty into the process before counting even begins.

– Trevor Hughes in Reno, Nevada

Bucking Hurricane Helene, misinformation in western North Carolina

Karen Brinson Bell stepped to the lectern facing a gallery of reporters on a mid-October afternoon.

A growing stream of Asheville, North Carolina, residents patiently stood in line, unbothered by the brisk morning as early voting began. An equally long line of motorists and pedestrians were on Bell's left, picking up supplies being distributed in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

"When I drove up here this morning, I felt anxiety and some trepidation about what I would find," Bell, executive director of the state’s board of elections, told reporters as her voice cracked.

Bell, 50, has already had to election proof against natural disasters and disease once before.

During March 2020, "while we’re putting up results, that’s when the first case of COVID-19 was reported in North Carolina. So, saddle up, because we have to be prepared for any and everything.”

North Carolina is expected to be one of the closest contests in the 2024 presidential election and has several competitive state legislative races that Democrats hope will chip away at Republicans' veto-proof majority.

When coupled with what locals describe as a 500-year flood, which has swept away entire roadways and forced many voters out of their homes, and emerging misinformation about the hurricane and election online, this year's election will test the system as never before.

Bell and her team of professional election ensured in-person early voting opened as expected in all 100 counties, including 76 out of 80 voting sites originally planned in the roughly two dozen counties in the Helene disaster zones.

The bipartisan board unanimously approved emergency measures giving displaced residents hit hardest more flexibility in voting options. They were ratified unanimously in both chambers of the GOP-controlled state Legislature.

Displaced voters also often need help dealing with the state’s new voter ID law.

The executive director's office has been working to establish tent-like structures as new polling locations and keeping contact with the U.S. Postal Service on identifying roads where mail cannot be delivered to help people get their absentee ballots counted.

North Carolina voters are turning out in droves, according to Bell’s office. They set a first-day early voting record of 353,166 ballots cast which topped the previous record of 348,559 ballots cast the first day of early voting in 2020.

At a time when election workers are facing threats, Bell understands that she and others are the glue to U.S. democracy at one of its most critical moments.

"We have not had a shortage of (election) workers in these Helene-affected counties and I think it's because in spite of the harassment, in spite of the lies that have been put and the bullying that's taken place, they are that committed," she said.

"Mountain people, North Carolinians and election officials are the toughest around."

– Phillip M. Bailey in Asheville, North Carolina

Elections director in Arizona’s most populous county counsels patience 

Scott Jarrett, elections director in Arizona's most populous county, is working out of a local recreation center, a climbing wall rising behind him.

The metaphor is obvious: The route ahead is steep. Despite carefully crafted plans to guide Maricopa County through another contentious election, it’s not necessarily going to be an easy climb. Suspicions still swirl from the contested 2020 presidential election ? despite an audit affirming President Biden's victory in Arizona. Court cases linger from candidates who continue to claim they won in 2022, although none of the lawsuits they filed overturned the results.

Jarrett, however, brims with data and advice as he addresses a workshop for poll inspectors – one of 20 such sessions he will attend in the runup to Election Day.

Inspectors have “the most important job,” Jarrett said, so it’s important to hear from the top guy. Inspectors are in charge of the county’s 246 vote centers.

Jarrett launches into a torrent of advice on turnout, security and what to do if a voter insists on using his own pen to mark the ballot. Let the voter use whatever writing utensil they want, he advised. It’s not worth an argument. Just as long as the pen is not red or pink ink. The machines that tabulate ballots can’t read red ink.

Jarrett projects 80% voter turnout. Most ballots will be cast by mail. Still, up to 420,000 people could vote in person on Nov. 5, creating a bottleneck at some Maricopa County voting booths.

“That’s where the voters take the longest amount of time,” he said, recalling one voter who spent almost two hours in the booth.

“You cannot rush them,” Jarrett said of deliberative voters. That could be seen as intimidation, he said, so no flipping the lights on and off or starting to pack up equipment. “You just have to give them that time.”

That’s especially true this year, given the county’s hefty two-page ballot. Covering both sides of two sheets of paper, the average ballot has 79.4 contests, including school board elections and city council matchups. Officials estimate it will take voters between nine to 14 minutes to mark their ballots.

Back at his office in the fortified election and tabulation center ? fences and increased security protocols were added as the center was flooded with protesters in 2020 ? Jarrett juggles meetings, quick checks on the command center that monitors activity at the voting centers and impromptu visits from staffers.

The fear is the unknown. When there’s a breakdown, or a hiccup, critics are everywhere.

“There’s very little forgiveness,” Jarrett said.

– Mary Jo Pitzl in Phoenix

A city clerk behind bulletproof glass in Wisconsin

Printers whirr, phones ring, and keyboards click and clack as frontline staff work among stacks of papers, boxes and shelving in the Wausau, Wisconsin city clerk’s office.

Kaitlyn Bernarde, 30, is the top election administrator in this city of 40,000. She sends out notices, hires and trains poll workers and stays up to date on state laws and election commission guidance.

“I tell my daughter when she asks, ‘What are you doing at work today?’ I say, ‘Well I’m going to go try to make the city a better place.’ Very 3-year-old level but at the base of it, that’s what it is.”

In the 2020 and 2022 general elections, Wausau residents voted mostly for Democratic Party candidates while the surrounding area went for Republicans.

Recent cycles have also brought increased scrutiny and poll watchers who sit at poll sites on Election Day looking for election malfeasance.

“I don’t think that was standard before 2020 to have people sit and watch the poll all day,” Bernarde said. “We create a packet of information for them, we ask them if they have any questions … to help them understand the process.”

The city is still taking steps to protect staff and election workers. Recent City Hall renovations have added bulletproof glass partitions to protect city staff and officials from unaccompanied members of the public. The week before our conversation, the common council passed an ordinance which penalize disorderly conduct towards election officials. The state Legislature’s version of the law does not become enforceable until July 2025.

Bernarde sees her role as ‘caretaker’ for the city and its history. Gathering information for meeting agendas, collecting minutes, retaining documents such as contracts, resolutions, and official communications are among her duties outside of election season.

One of her favorite parts of her job are swearing-in ceremonies for elected officials, police officers, firefighters and citizen members of committees.

“They do the same oath that I took: swearing to uphold the U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of the State of Wisconsin,” Bernarde said. “There’s so much pride in those words. People are taking on this duty to follow the rules to make the city a better place for everyone in it.”

– Erik Pfantz in Wausau, Wisconsin

An election coordinator in Michigan who doesn’t want to talk about his job

These days, there's one question Tony Weatherly is reluctant to answer: What do you do for a living?

A senior elections coordinator at the West Bloomfield Township clerk’s office in suburban Detroit, Weatherly avoids answering directly.

"I'm like, I am a municipal worker,” he said. "If I'm just meeting someone new, we're not going to talk about it so much. Let's not talk about work."

It wasn’t always this way.

Weatherly has worked elections for about nine years. He takes pride in his work but in a political season marked by anger and division, he’s heard all the conspiracy theories related to elections.

“I think there's always been that person out there that says dead people are voting,” Weatherly said. “That's been around forever, but I think in the last four years, it has gotten significantly worse.”

If a voter submits an absentee ballot and then dies before the election, Weatherly gets an email once a death certificate is issued. Then he or a colleague pulls that absentee ballot envelope from the system and places it in a rejected ballot file, where it won’t count.

Weatherly, 43, enlisted in the Marine Corps out of high school and went to college on the GI Bill. He said he trusts the system because he knows how it works and the people working it.

On a recent weekday, he emptied absentee ballots in sealed envelopes from the drop boxes outside his office and followed office procedures: First add a time stamp. Next, the envelope barcode is scanned into a computer and marked as received. Then Weatherly or someone else in the office compares the signature on the envelope with an electronic copy on file. When those match, it’s marked approved and the approver initials the envelope.

From there, it’s sorted by precinct and placed in numerical order to be counted.

If the signature doesn’t match, usually for legitimate reasons like the voter suffered a stroke or hand injury, election workers contact the voter with an option to fix it. That’s done through a process known as curing, where the voter submits a form swearing under penalty of perjury that they are the person named in the ballot application

If the voter doesn’t fix it, that ballot goes to the rejected ballots file.

Weatherly does other things, too, like training poll workers, testing tabulators and registering people to vote or to receive an absentee ballot.

He said the checks and balances built into the system make him confident that it's secure. Someone trying to cheat would have to get it past multiple safeguards, not to mention people, making it extremely unlikely, he said.

"It would be astronomical to get something through without anyone catching it," he said.

– John Wisley in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan

A Georgia woman who helps voters facing problems at the polls

Deborah Freeman raised her hand in a stopping motion last Wednesday, warning the man trying to hand out pamphlets that he couldn’t do that so close to a polling site.

“There’s a sign right down there,’’ she gently chastised him as she pointed down the parking lot.

He apologized and hurried off.

“It’s not a hard job,’’ Freeman said as she shook her head. “Most people obey and follow the rules.”

It was the first week of early voting in Georgia and Freeman was stationed outside a polling station in southwest Atlanta to help voters who have problems or questions. The part-time job is part of a nonpartisan effort called “Election Protection,’’ a national coalition of civil rights and voting rights groups whose workers take calls, track complaints and visit polling sites to address voter concerns.

Freeman, 76, a retired customer service rep for Atlanta’s public transit system, doesn’t offer voters legal advice. That’s the job of lawyers, who are a phone call away.

“It gets to be tricky if you cross the line,’’ she said.

But Freeman, who sported a black “Election Protection’’ shirt, knows how elections work. She has also served as a poll worker for 37 years and will do it again on Election Day after the early voting period ends.

She said while voting seems easier, she’s worried some people may be confused by last-minute changes, such as those recently passed by the Georgia State Election Board (and then thrown out in court).

Days before, Freeman went through training to get updates on new election rules and proposed changes. No one among the steady stream of voters had approached her that day with major concerns.

“It’s best for me to be here and not have any problems than to not be here and have problems,’’ she said. “You can’t solve them if you’re not here.”

Throughout the day, Freeman greeted voters warmly, but not everyone responded in kind.

“How you doing young man? You trying to vote?’’ she asked a man standing nearby.

“I don’t vote for nobody!’’ he grumbled.

Freeman just smiled. There were others to encourage like first-time voter Kelvione Palmer, 20, who said later “my vote matters.’’

Freeman’s passion for her work is rooted in her family history. She remembers how her parents struggled in the segregated South.

“That encouraged me to do what I do today and to be passionate about it, because it makes a difference,’’ she said.

Freeman said she’s determined to make sure anyone who is eligible to vote can.

“Now, I have to do like everybody else,’’ she said, “and go with my family to vote.’’

– Deborah Barfield Berry in Atlanta

Correction: A previous version of this story the organizations involved in setting up polling tents in North Carolina.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Across swing states, a day in the life of election workers