Pennsylvania election officials are burnt out and leaving their jobs after 2020 ‘nightmare’ | Spotlight PA
In the weeks before the general election, Sara May-Silfee’s office was overwhelmed. Phone calls from voters were incessant. Lines of people formed outside the building to apply for and cast mail ballots. In one instance, she said, impatient voters began chants outside her office that the waiting times amounted to voter suppression. The Monroe County elections director even got in the habit of closing her office’s shades at night, she said, because voters would knock on the windows, as late as 9, looking for assistance. “It was a nightmare,” May-Silfee said. “Everything was a nightmare.” Even before the pandemic emerged this spring, county election directors said they warned lawmakers and state officials that huge changes to Pennsylvania’s voting system were too much, too fast. Other states took years to implement statewide no-excuse mail voting. They had a few months.Since the passage of Act 77, the 2019 law that made sweeping changes to voting in Pennsylvania, at least 21 election directors and deputy directors from more than a dozen of the state’s 67 counties have left or will soon leave their posts, according to an analysis by Spotlight PA and Votebeat. A dozen current and former election officials said that’s no coincidence. “Mail-in voting has become like a second election that we have to run, that we never had to run before,” Lycoming County Elections Director Forrest Lehman said. “It has almost doubled the workload, and you know, nobody’s salaries have doubled at the same time.” Despite these challenges, Election Day went smoothly, with officials reporting few problems. Still, the people tasked with running elections are drained from dealing with regular verbal attacks from angry voters, confused or suspicious of the process this year.
Full Article: Pa. election officials are burnt out and leaving their jobs after 2020 ‘nightmare’ – pennlive.com