FREDERICKSBURG, Texas — The November election is less than three months away. Recently, Gillespie County’s entire elections staff of three people quit.
The county judge, who declined to speak on camera, said the clerk and tax assessor-collector will handle the November election now. Neither of those offices accepted interview requests.
“I do feel for Gillespie County because it is a really bad time to be without a chief election officer,” said Trudy Hancock, the president of the Texas Association of Elections Administrators. Hancock is also the elections administrator (EA) for Brazos County.
She said there’s been a big turnover of EAs in recent years. This is due to the stress of the job, new requirements and threats.
“Politics, in general, have become very nasty. People are very opinionated, and they’re not very tolerant if someone doesn’t have their same opinion,” Hancock said. “And there is so much misinformation out there about how people’s ballots are handled and the security that goes into our elections… So, I think misinformation is the biggest proponent to some of the violence that’s being spread.”
Hancock said she filed a report last election because one of her staff members received a threat.
Each election worker is given a manual that includes safety protocols. Hancock said highlighting this information is more important than ever.
“We are seeing a huge surge in violence against my staff,” Hancock said. “I have some friends that are in larger counties that have put in place some pretty rigorous things. We’ve had the sheriff’s department come in and do some training for us. And we hope and pray that we never have to use that training. But we want to be ready and we want to protect our staff and be sure that we do everything possible to keep them safe.”
Cathy Collier has been the Gillespie County Democratic Party chair since 2016. She guessed that the EA who quit was being overworked and intimidated.
“The pressures of the job are have increased a lot,” Collier said. “Every time the state legislature meets, they add about 100 to 200, literally, new pieces of of election law that she [had] to process. She [had] a very small staff. And she was overworked, on top of receiving a lot of intimidation, threats and questioning of her ability to do the job and everything else that went on election night.”
The former EA, Anissa Herrera, could not be reached for comment.
“She really needs some space right now,” Collier said.
The county sheriff said his office and the local police never knew of any threats. The Fredericksburg mayor said the same thing.
Mo Saiidi chairs the Gillespie County Republican Party. He thinks the resignation was more about the stress of the job and a disagreement about compensation with the county, rather than intimidation.
“I have not been involved nor been informed of such a threat or anything like that. And in fact, our elections have always gone very smooth and very friendly,” Saiidi said.
He added that it’s “unfortunate” if Herrera did, in fact, receive threats.
“It’s really disheartening that somebody would do such a thing,” Saiidi said. “We don’t condone it, of course. We’re obviously opposed to that kind of thing. And the election administrators have done a very good, decent job of supporting the community.”
He said this story has become a bigger deal than it actually is.
“I moved to Fredericksburg in 2015 with my family,” Saiidi said. “This community is a beautiful community and has a very rich German heritage. People are very friendly, courteous, and it’s unfortunate that something like this has come up. In my personal opinion, it is blown out of proportion. And it’s giving our county and city a really bad reputation, perhaps. And the media has picked up on that. And it’s unfortunate that that happened. There is nothing like that — far from true honestly — in this community. Now, there may have been some issues or problems in the past before I came on board that I can’t speak for.”
Collier said she didn’t think the issue was “blown out of proportion.” She said it’s relatable since other EAs have felt overworked and received threats, too.
“I think that it resonated because of the things that are going on across the country. It’s just part of a huge story that’s nationwide,” she said.
Election administrators and workers are needed across the state. But Hancock said overall, the state’s ready for the election.
“We may not be as stacked as we would like to be, but our polling places will be open,” she said.
Before November rolls around, Collier said getting the county clerk and tax assessor-collector offices up to speed on the new laws is important.
“The fix for the issue is eventually to hire an EA. But hiring an EA right now would mean that the clerk’s office and the tax assessor-collector’s office could no longer, by law, be involved,” Collier said. “Those are the best-trained people we have right now, so it’s essential that we not hire an EA until this election cycle is over, because we’d just be throwing them in the deep end of the pool.”
Others will be hired to help once early voting starts. Collier said she’s already had 10 people tell her they’d serve as temporary clerks during that time. The Secretary of State’s office has also been asked to aid.
“People need to be patient,” Collier said. “They need to know that the election results are probably not going to be as fast as they might like for them to be. But I think they need to know that this is a secure election, and it’s a fairly done election.”