Excerpts:

 Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley is a bit of a Renaissance man.

Before joining the county as chief deputy registrar, Kelley worked in a variety of fields including retail, law enforcement and he’d served as an adjunct professor with Riverside Community College’s Business Administration Department.

Kelley was hired as chief deputy registrar in 2004, got appointed acting registrar the following year and was named to the position permanently in 2006. He the longest serving Orange County election official and one of the most senior—in experience, not age!—election officials California.

Lawmakers in Oregon and California are calling for tougher legislation to protect election workers in response to a continuing wave of threats and harassment inspired by former President Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 vote was rigged against him.

In Oregon, legislators are considering a measure that would make it a felony to harass or threaten election workers while they are performing their official duties, state officials said. The measure would also exempt the personal information of election workers, such as home addresses, from certain public records.

"In the months leading up to and since the 2020 election, election workers across the country have faced verbal abuse, harassment and violent threats on their lives,” Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, a Democrat, told state lawmakers on Tuesday. “As we head into the 2022 election season, we must do all we can to protect election workers against physical harm fueled by misinformation.”

In a way, it feels like the recall campaign against Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t over.

Sure, the election results have been certified and Newsom will serve out the remainder of his term while the replacement candidates settle for a spot in the history books.

But the discussion prompted by the recall — and the demands for reform, sparked by a chorus of complaints about how these special elections work — is only getting started.

Two public hearings Thursday in Sacramento made clear there are a lot of options floating around for revamping a tool of California’s direct democracy that’s only been slightly tweaked since its creation in 1911.

Excerpt:

It’s no surprise that legislators on both sides of the aisle receive hate mail, social media harassment and threats. All elected officials are targets from time to time. It’s not ok, yet it’s hard to stop.

Now, local election officials—the people who administer elections—are targets, too. First, who are these people? Then, what’s up with harassment?

Election officials are the more than 8,000 government employees who run elections (along with more than 100,000 poll workers). Metaphorically, they’re the face of democracy. Practically, they’re responsible for answering voter questions; testing, deploying and storing election equipment; recruiting and training poll workers; finding polling locations; providing accurate public information; protecting against cybersecurity threats; and more.