Andrew McDonald started his job at Nevadaʼs Washoe County voting office this summer‚ but his first months turned into an unexpected test-run. The new-hire found himself dealing with a string of non-standard situations that no-one couldve predicted
The countyʼs election system faced several road-blocks: board members refused to sign-off on primary results‚ and one member even had to deal with a citizens attempt at arrest (which was completely out-of-line). Things got more complex when about twenty-thousand mail-in ballots were mis-sent to non-active voters — a major mix-up that needed quick fixing
The biggest shake-up came when McDonalds supervisor announced an un-planned leave just before Nov election: leaving him to step-up as temporary head of operations. This created a unique situation where a five-month employee had to take charge of the whole voting process