Issue: county recorders

After a decade serving as Yavapai County recorder, Leslie Hoffman announced her resignation this week and said the hostility directed toward her and her office during the past two years played into her decision to leave.

“I’ve been accused of corruption, giving out false numbers,” Hoffman said. “Look at Twitter today, and you will see some of the nasty things that have been said. ‘We’re watching you,’ ‘Do better,’ ‘Lawyer up.’”

In Arizona and across the country, threats and negativity toward election officials are taking their toll, speeding up retirements or prompting career or job changes.

Yavapai County Elections Director Lynn Constabile, who has been in her position 18 years, is also resigning. Constabile, an independent, said after the 2020 election, she never got the sense of accomplishment and relief that had kept her going after each election cycle.

“It feels like that election is still not over,” she said.

Constabile described a meeting last year where she and Hoffman came to answer questions about the election and were met with hecklers.

“When we get yelled at for how people voted and then accused of being corrupt, that was it for me,” Constabile said. “I was like, ‘No, I have to find something else to do. I’m not going to be able to do this for the rest of my life.’”

Hoffman is a Republican in a solidly Republican county where Donald Trump and Martha McSally won handily in 2020. Still, she said she gets emails through ProtonMail with messages like: “Leslie Hoffman is a fraud owned by the corrupt government.” Constabile said when they point out Trump and McSally won in their county, they’re met with, “Well, they should have won by more.”

While Hoffman said that while most comments they receive are not direct threats, sheriff’s deputies patrol her house periodically anyway. Constabile said she installed security cameras around her home.

Despite all of that, Hoffman said she would have stayed, had she not received a job offer that she couldn’t pass up. She declined to share where she’ll be working next, but said the offer felt like a sign. The new position is not in elections.

“It is really hard, considering the climate, when you get a really good position offered to you,” Hoffman said.

Constabile also has a new job lined up: a remote position at a nonprofit based in California, which she said was “elections adjacent.”

Tammy Patrick, senior adviser to the elections team at the Democracy Fund, testified to the U.S. Senate in May that the election administration field is “on the precipice of a mass exodus of election professionals.” Patrick previously worked as the federal compliance officer for Maricopa County.

She noted in her testimony that 74% of chief local election officials in the U.S. are older than 50, and 25% are older than 65. She said 35% of local officials are eligible to retire before the 2024 election.

“In this moment where everyone is being attacked and their families are being threatened, it has spurred many people who probably would have stayed on through at least one or two more presidential elections to leave the field even before this midterm,” Patrick said in an interview with Arizona Capitol Times. 

In addition to Hoffman, Yuma County Recorder Robyn Stallworth Pouquette, who has held that position since 2008, is taking a new job within the county, resigning effective July 18. At least six of Arizona’s 15 counties will have new elections directors this election cycle, including Pima, Pinal, Coconino, La Paz, Santa Cruz and Yavapai. Pouquette told ABC 15’s Garrett Archer that she was not resigning because of the “2,000 Mules” film or the county’s investigation into election fraud. The Yuma County Recorder’s Office is working with the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office on the investigation, according to the sheriff, who has also said the investigation was not prompted by the film.

Ken Matta, a longtime employee of the Secretary of State’s Office, left the office in May after nearly 20 years, working most recently as the state’s information security director. In a Twitter thread discussing his departure, Matta said that he started carrying a gun when he would go to Veterans Memorial Coliseum to observe the Arizona Senate’s election review last year and said he had the responsibility of triaging threatening messages sent to the office.

“I’ve seen the worst in people as they respond to misinformation spread by a political party – that is still going on today,” he wrote on Twitter.

Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said he thinks other recorders will retire soon.

“I would imagine there’s a whole number of recorders, I’m thinking at least four, who are probably going to retire this term,” he said.

Patrick, of the Democracy Fund, said there are two main concerns with longtime elections officials leaving: a loss of institutional knowledge and the question of who will fill the vacancies.

In some regards, Arizona is in a better position than many states when it comes to the first issue, because of the state’s Elections Procedures Manual, which provides a step-by-step how-to guide to administering elections. The manual is currently the subject of litigation, as Attorney General Mark Brnovich accused Secretary of State Katie Hobbs of not producing a “legally compliant” manual. While a Yavapai County Superior Court judge threw out the suit, Brnovich has since appealed.

“The procedures manual is so important because in most places in this country, when you become an election official, there’s no manual,” Patrick said. “There’s no guide. There’s nothing that tells you how … you do all of the things that you need to do in order to conduct an election.”

With the vacancies, Patrick said there’s a worry that someone running on a platform of election conspiracy theories could be elected or appointed instead of a nonpartisan election professional.

“We might get people put in these positions or elected into these positions that have a different motivation than the person that they’re replacing,” Patrick said. “That’s very problematic and deeply troubling.”

While many of these positions are elected through party primaries, Patrick said the history of election administration is that those individuals serve all voters.

Hoffman and Constabile said they had confidence in the Yavapai Board of Supervisors to appoint people who are just as neutral as they and their staff are. Hoffman shared the concern about institutional knowledge, noting the community of people with the skill set for the position is small.

“And, right now it’s hard to hire people because they see a job that has anything to do with elections, and they’re not as likely to apply,” she said.

Constabile’s resignation is effective July 1. Hoffman will step down July 22. In the meantime, Hoffman plans to prepare for the August 2 primary.  Hoffman said she’s proud of the work her office has done over the past 10 years and credited her staff, who she said were “wonderful, brilliant people.” Constabile echoed the sentiment.

“I feel really bad for the people we’re leaving behind that have to run the election,” she said. “I basically handpick my department, and they’re the best people in the world. I feel bad that I’m leaving them in the lurch. But I can’t – sometimes you just have to look out for No. 1.”