RENO, Nev. — One morning last month, Cari-Ann Burgess did something completely unremarkable: She stopped at a coffee shop on her way to work.
For Burgess, the top election official in a northern Nevada county, such trips could be dangerous. As she waited for a hot cup of tea and breakfast, an older woman approached her.
“She told me then that I should be ashamed of myself — that I was a disgrace, a disgrace to Washoe County, and that I should crawl in a hole and die,” Burgess said in an interview with The Associated Press the next day.
A morning stop at the coffee shop would no longer be possible. It was added to a growing list of things Burgess no longer did because of her job. She had already stopped buying groceries and other basic necessities. Dinner was served at home. When she and her husband went out to eat or shop, they traveled an hour from their Reno neighborhood.
“I go to work, I go home, I go to church — that’s about it,” Burgess said. “I’m very careful about where I go now.”
Still, Burgess said she was looking forward to November, overseeing the presidential election with her team in Nevada’s second-most populous county. That ended one day in late September when she was called into a meeting with county officials.
The county said Burgess had requested medical leave to deal with stress and her departure is being seen as a personnel matter. In a statement, the county said it was “focused on conducting a smooth and fair election.”
Burgess said yes and was forced out after refusing to agree to personnel changes requested by the county manager’s office. She said she had repeatedly asked to stay, even providing a doctor’s note guaranteeing her health and hiring an attorney.
The office is now overseen by Burgess’s deputy — the fifth person in four years to lead the county’s election operation. The entire staff is new since 2020. The turnover is a symptom of a county that has been deeply divided politically and plagued by election conspiracy theories since Republican Donald Trump lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Burgess told the AP last week in her first public comments since her abrupt departure that she was worried about her team and didn’t know what to do next. She even postponed her vote, reminding her that she was no longer part of a process she loves.
“I gave 110 percent of who I was and who I am to this job. And then all of a sudden I’m gone and I don’t understand it,” Burgess said as she pondered her next steps. “I don’t understand how we got to this point.”
AP reporters were in Reno in September, a week before her departure, and spent several days with Burgess, including time at the Washoe County elections office and at her home. Like those before her, Burgess and her staff found themselves in a pressure cooker, facing scathing criticism at public meetings and responding to conspiracy-theory claims about voting machines, drop boxes and voter rolls.
Dealing with members of the elected county committee who distrusted the election process only made the task more difficult.
Burgess was an extreme example of the kind of challenges local election officials face across the United States after four years of false claims that have undermined public confidence in elections and those who run them. Election workers have faced intimidation and even death threats and have taken extra security measures this year, including adding bulletproof glass and panic buttons.
During the three days the AP spent with Burgess, she gave no indication that she planned to leave her job. She spoke at length about how she dealt with the stress for herself, her family and her staff.
“I didn’t think I would be in a place where I am today — so central and a hotbed for this election, but I’m grateful,” Burgess said, sitting in her living room surrounded by inspiring Bible passages and Christian symbols. “I’m grateful for the opportunity. I’m grateful to be serving my country again.”
On the wall hung a decorative sign that read, “God doesn’t give us what we can handle, God helps us handle what we get.”
At home on a Friday night, Burgess sat at the table with her husband and a close friend she considers a brother. Her husband’s prayer during the meal included a request to keep Burgess and her team safe.
“I had no idea what we were getting into, but I know this is something that’s very important to Cari. She loves her job,” Shane Burgess said after dinner. “Sometimes I want to join the fight, but I know she can handle herself.”
Later, Burgess and her husband discussed plans for the weekend. Burgess wanted to take her husband, a baseball fan, to see Reno’s minor league team, the Aces, play before the season was over.
“Not if you get yelled at,” Shane Burgess told his wife as they sat side by side in matching armchairs.
Burgess tried to reassure her husband: “I can wear a hat.”
They ultimately decided not to go.
The Washoe County Elections Office is located in a complex of government buildings a few miles north of downtown Reno. Burgess’s office was decorated before she left with American flags, a copy of the U.S. Constitution and decorative red, white and blue stars that read Liberty, Liberty and America.
“Election Heroes Work Here,” read a sign outside her office door.
She was the fourth person to lead the Washoe County Elections Office since 2020 and was appointed interim registrar of voters by the county commission in a 3-2 vote in January. Even though her entire office was new, Burgess said she was impressed by how well the staff performed amid the pressures of working in a stressful environment.
“I have great employees who are all doing their part and doing their jobs to perfection,” Burgess said.
In parts of the U.S., local election officials have been exhausted by the intimidation and demands of their jobs, retiring or leaving the profession altogether. Even Burgess had stopped working in elections after she was publicly harassed by people angry that Trump had lost the 2020 election, even though he had easily won the Minnesota county where she worked.
After that election, she moved to North Carolina and was working at a beachside ice cream shop when she felt compelled to return to the polls while watching fireworks on the Fourth of July.
“I thought, I can’t serve my country the way I did,” she said. “And now that I’ve lived through the election and know it, I think, That’s something I can work on again. I can do elections again.”
Upon arriving in Washoe County, where the Sierra Nevada meets the high desert, Burgess found a county mired in conspiracy theories about voting.
County meetings are often prolonged by members of the public who oppose Burgess’ appointment and want the county to count votes because they don’t trust the voting equipment.
“It feels like you’re on the front lines, but it’s a different front. It’s the front lines of democracy, not the front lines of battle,” Burgess said. “But the way the country is divided right now, it feels like a battle, because you’re fighting misinformation every day.”
Burgess said a vote by the commission earlier this year to refuse to certify two recounts of state elections damaged morale at the elections office. Afterward, she said, two employees were in tears. There were no significant problems during the vote and no errors in the vote count, she said. Now, under mounting public pressure, the commission finally voted to certify.
Every morning when office assistant Shawna Johnson arrives, she updates the whiteboard with the latest counts of early voting and Election Day, Nov. 5. On that day, they were 28 and 45 days, respectively.
She also makes sure to add one more: “95 days until Christmas.”
“We know what we’re focused on: early voting and then Election Day,” Johnson said. “But you have to look ahead to what happens after that. We can go back to our normal lives, our normal work hours, be home with our families and celebrate the holidays.”
A few days before her departure, Burgess hired a consultant to train staff on how to manage stress. That included the importance of taking regular breaks, getting enough sleep and building a supportive network of friends and family.
“I realize I have trauma from 2020 and I have PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder], and I don’t want that to happen to my team,” Burgess said. “They deserve better. They deserve to know how to take care of themselves.”
At one point, Burgess reminded her team to take some time off, since everyone would be working weekends starting the first week of October.
Privately, Burgess acknowledged that time off for her staff would likely mean more work for her. In the two months leading up to the election, she expected to work 13 hours a day.
“If they can’t be there, I have to be there,” Burgess said. “There’s just so many things that have to be done for an election.”
One of the many things Burgess had to do was beef up security at the election office.
Across the country, personal safety and the security of election offices have become top concerns due to threats and intimidation from election workers.
Shortly after Burgess said she was harassed at the coffee shop, she was given a tour to discuss security measures that needed to be implemented for the November election. One of the recommendations was to put a film on glass windows that can slow, but not stop, bullets.
“That’s when I realized I have a much more dangerous job than I really thought I would. It should never be like this,” Burgess said.
Burgess said she largely kept those concerns to herself. She said she wanted her team to focus on running a smooth and safe election. That included making sure poll workers were properly trained.
On the day of the coffee shop incident, Burgess recalled closing her office door and turning off the lights after work. She sat on the couch in her office and prayed for comfort and strength.
“I could go somewhere else where it’s a lot easier,” Burgess said. “I could completely withdraw from the election. That’s not in me. It’s not in me to leave something I love.”
Less than a week later, she was gone and, she said, a decision had been made for her. And Washoe County would once again put someone else in charge of the election.
___
The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory reporting on elections and democracy. Learn more about AP’s Democracy Initiative here . is solely responsible for all content.