A third of Massachusetts cities, towns have had change in top election official since 2020

More than a third of all Massachusetts municipalities have had a change in their chief election official or town clerk since the 2020 presidential election, a transition rate that has left the secretary of state concerned as an increasingly intense 2024 election barrels closer.

The turnover means many officials will likely take on a presidential election for the first time as the top boss in charge of administering ballots, polls, and counting votes. The apparent brain drain is not isolated to Massachusetts — national statistics have shown an exodus of clerks or chief election officers.

Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin said 128 of the 351 cities and towns have had a change in their local clerk or chief election official — 49 of the 128 have changed since the 2022 election. Of the 128 who have departed, 109 retired or lost reelection, five died, and 14 took other jobs as an assistant or clerk in another community, Galvin said.

Galvin said the format for a state election is the same regardless if it’s a presidential or only state offices. The difference, he said, is the intensity of a presidential election, which often can draw voters who do not participate in state-only elections.

For those town clerks who did run the 2022 state election, that experience will help, Galvin said. But he said he has some concerns with the high number of new officials.

“My concern, obviously, is the effective administration of elections,” he said in an interview. “… But we’ve had a very good and collaborative relationship during my tenure and we strive to make that better. And part of that process is to give people support, not just strategic support and administrative support for our systems that are in place, but to give them support in terms of education. And we’ve been doing that.”

Brookline Town Clerk Ben Kaufman is one of the relatively new faces, having been elected in May 2021 after long-time clerk Patrick Ward retired.

Kaufman notched three elections in 2022 — a town election, a state primary, and the state general election. And in the middle of all of those contests, he had to deal with the implementation of an election reform law that made early voting and vote-by-mail permanent in Massachusetts.

Burnout and turnover among clerks is something that is happening across the country, and Massachusetts is by no means immune to the issue, he said.

Serving as a clerk or election administrator is a rewarding job but also a tiring one that requires late nights, weekends, and the ability to deal with high-stress situations, he said.

And it can be frustrating when “you pour your heart and soul into an election” only for one thing to go wrong “and that’s what gets blown out of proportion,” Kaufman said.

“We’re always hyper aware of making sure we don’t make mistakes because we know how important this work is,” Kaufman told the Herald. “But also (remember) that the people who are running your elections, who are answering the phones, who are getting you your ballots, who are sitting at the table when you walk into your polling place, they’re just people trying to do their jobs.”

Clerks and election officials across the country have departed at high rates since the 2020 presidential election.

A report from Issue One, a bipartisan political reform group, found that half of the 76 million residents living in 11 western states from California to Washington and New Mexico to Montana have a new local election chief since the 2020 election.

Election administration work is technical — there are specialized voting machines, ballot tabulation, and the need to counter cybersecurity threats. It takes time for people to learn “complex procedures, gain familiarity with equipment, and hone problem-solving skills for when challenges arise,” Issue One said in the report.

“Those with less experience are more prone to making small mistakes based on lack of knowledge — mistakes that, however innocuous, may be interpreted by hyper-partisans as malicious acts,” the report said. “To help prepare the next generation of election officials and election workers, jurisdictions across the country need to be investing significantly in training.”

As fresh faces arrive, Galvin said his office has offered “pretty extensive training sessions” this year and plans to offer more in 2024 in effort to give clerks a “very thorough grounding” in election procedures.

“In fact, we just had one last week in Springfield, which was very thorough and very extensive,” he said. “Since this process with the presidential primary starts within months, we need to make sure people are familiar with it and that’s what we’re working on.”

Even as a third of election chiefs or town clerks left their jobs, a majority stayed in their role.

Worcester City Clerk Niko Vangjeli is one of them.

He took over the top job in March 2020 — or as he puts it, “I was sworn-in as the building shut down” — after years of working for the city, including as assistant city clerk, assistant director of elections, and principal staff assistant for elections.

The 2020 pandemic-era presidential elections were his first leading the city clerk’s office, and it came as several other employees in the office retired.  It was also the first time Worcester had ever processed tens of thousands of mail-in ballots as people were forced to stay home because of COVID-19.

But Vangjeli said if he was able to survive 2020, he could make it through anything, including the upcoming 2024 presidential primary in March and general election in November.

“That was the worst it could be,” Vangjeli said of 2020. “So when you’re asking about turnover, if I didn’t leave in 2020, I don’t think I would leave the clerk job now.”