you want some more? reporter: jerry role, another former trump supporter, also left her role last year. i ve never been treated so poorly, so disrespected. reporter: so much of the vitriol directed at election workers is fuelled by false beliefs about voting machines, about ballots, and about election workers themselves. i had a guy tell me that he could hack into our election equipment through the power outlet. what people believe? nonsensical. it never has been like this before. it s not stupidity. they really don t care about truth or integrity. they just want their outcome. i think that s it. reporter: jerry has spent most of her life working in the court system as a county attorney. but she says the abuse she received as an election worker topped it all. i have been treated better by murderers, child molesters,
facebook posts falsely claiming trump legally won by a landslide. sometimes it s hard for me to accept that there wasn t some errors made in the election. but i m not sure that it was to the extent that it would have changed the election. reporter: for some of the election conspiracy theorists who forced lisa out of her job, bob s doubts about the 2020 election made him an ideal candidate to replace her. to maybe some of the people, your critics were saying, this is an election skeptic, an extremist, a conspiracy theory. denier. denier. while some people would have viewed that as a disqualification correct. there s people who are probably saying, this is our guy. correct. he knows what s up. he knows the election s been stolen. so, when you got there, some people were probably happy to see you coming. yes. but then something happened that you never expected.
believe donald trump really won the 2020 election. tonight donie o sullivan reports on what s happened to one arizona county election official who once believed conspiracy theories but then discovered he wasn t extreme enough. you should be in jail. you should be killed. you should be fired. to just people screaming into the phone. i mean, just and 24/7. reporter: lisa ma rah was direction of elections in arizona for six years. we had to hire an armed security company because the people that worked in the office processing ballots were afraid somebody was going to come break the door down and take ballots. reporter: lisa, a life long republican, had enough of the intimidation and threats. and last year, she quit. your successor is a man named bob reporter: this is bob. the election itself just didn t seem like it had been in the past elections. there was just something off. back in 2020, he shared these
you weren t extreme enough. no. they found out from the beginning that i was going to follow the laws and procedures. and they weren t happy about that. some were not. your actions, sir, are not that of a conservative. if i had the authority, i d fire you. reporter: at public meetings in the county, some voerts who believe conspiracy theories about the election decided bob was not maga enough and began demanding he overhaul the entire voting system. to do away with the machines, do away with mail ballots. those are things that have to be changed legislatively. and it s not permissible legally for me to get away with all this stuff. i m sure you brain dead rinos and democrats can understand we the people don t want any machines or mail-in ballots. after just four months, bob quit. at my age, i don t need the i need less drama.
thieves, rapists than the political parties and the elected representatives. reporter: harassment is one of the main reasons election officials across the country have called it quits. across 11 western states, more than 160 top local election officials have left their positions since november 2020. we re asking a lot of our elections workers to deal with not only the general misinformation out there but directly people being attacked. reporter: republican bill gates is on the board of supervisors for arizona s largest county. how concerned are you about the fact there are election conspiracy theorists now becoming election officials? i m very concerned about that. we re seeing that in some small counties. we are only as strong as our weakest link. it s very sad because we need experienced election workers. reporter: fortunately for bob, he returned to his old election job in a different