The most detailed look yet at the 'exodus' of local voting officials

Stephen Richer has never run a presidential election before.

He oversees voting as the county recorder in Arizona's largest county, Maricopa County, and took office in 2021.

Yet as November approaches in this closely scrutinized swing state, Richer finds himself looking across the profession and realizing he's essentially an old-timer.

"There are 15 recorders in 15 counties ... and I'm already, I think, fifth-most senior or fourth-most senior of the 15," Richer told NPR recently, at an event hosted by the Campaign Legal Center. "So, yeah, [turnover] is real."

A new report out Tuesday confirms that, and provides the most in-depth nationwide analysis yet of the people at the heart of the democratic process: the thousands of election officials across the U.S. that administer voting.

It's been clear for some time that the work environment in these jobs was becoming unsustainable. Threats and harassment have become commonplace since the flurry of voting lies that followed Donald Trump's loss in 2020, while at the same time, the actual job duties required have been steadily growing more complex.

And this new report, authored by researchers at UCLA and the Bipartisan Policy Center, confirms people are now leaving the profession at a faster rate than any point in the previous two decades.

But the report also adds new context to the phenomenon.

A 20-year take on turnover

Notably, the report took a long view to the turnover question and found that while attrition did increase in the time following 2020, it's been slowly increasing for years — meaning "election administration might be more equipped to respond to it than previously speculated."

"Turnover is not a new phenomenon," said Rachel Orey, senior associate director at the