One of the major assignments this year for democracy team reporter Christina Cassidy, the AP’s voting expert, was to get access to a local elections clerk who was trying to prepare for the presidential election while combatting misinformation, conspiracy theorists and local distrust of elections. The A-list candidate for such a profile was the registrar for Washoe County, Nevada — the fourth person to hold that job in a swing county in one of the nations’ closest presidential battlegrounds.
She was a reluctant source, but Cassidy worked on her for months, some of which included meeting her at various election director gatherings around the country. Eventually, she said yes and allowed Cassidy, democracy video journalist Serkan Gurbuz and Nevada photographer John Locher incredible access just as early voting was getting underway. They spent three days in Washoe County, at the elections offices talking with the registrar and her staff, and then at her home with her husband.
The story she told of being hounded mercilessly by conspiracy theorists was heart-wrenching. The registrar no longer went out to shop for groceries, eat at a restaurant or even go with her husband to a minor league baseball game, all for fear of being harassed.
A week after the reporting team left, and before the enterprise story had published, the registrar, Cari-Ann Burgess, was suddenly placed on leave under cloudy circumstances. For nearly three weeks, Cassidy talked with the registrar off the record, waiting until she was ready to tell her story. When she was, it was Cassidy who got it — a scoop that resonated throughout Nevada media.
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