Running an election is not for the faint of heart.  

“It’s high stakes, high pressure, all the time,” said Paula Buff, elections administrator for Flathead County.  

There’s never a dull moment in her world. From voter registration and candidate filings to mailing absentee ballots and testing tabulators, running an election is a long and complicated process.  

And that’s not to mention keeping up with new legislation. In the last election, Montana voters were required for the first time to include their birth date, along with their signature, on the envelope for absentee ballots. 

“Election work is incredibly detailed and incredibly hard,” Buff said.  

Her organizational skills and background in legal work have served her well in a position that’s come under intense public scrutiny.  

Buff’s sunlit office is neatly organized with spread sheets, notebooks and binders. Pinned documents hang on the wall above her desk. Pens are stacked away in a pencil cup. A desk plate that says “Of course, I’m listening,” sits next to a rubber chicken and a roll of tape.  

“I’m probably a type-A personality person, where I want something done right,” Buff said.  

Despite the intensity and pressure around her job, Buff has an energetic personality, easy smile and a can-do attitude that’s impressed employers since high school. Bill Douglas, founder of Douglas Law Firm in Libby, was her first boss and mentor.  

“I was just a young kid in the beginning,” Buff said, who grew up in Libby. “And they saw the potential.”   

INSPIRED BY her own experience, Buff originally wanted to study psychology and become a high school counselor. Her high school counselors helped her find her own way in life, she said. 

“I wanted to help high school kids,” Buff said. “But that is about as far from what I ended up doing.”  

Graduating with an associate degree in business administration from Flathead Valley Community College in 1995, she took up a job with Douglas Law Firm, her former part-time employer from high school.  

Buff worked there for about a decade before she moved to Seattle in 2003 for a paralegal job with Washington Mutual, a thrift charter bank.  

It wasn’t long before she was promoted to legal assistant, where she tracked draft legislation, prepped political action committee board meetings and managed the committee’s campaign finances. 

WHEN THE bank failed in 2006, Buff went on to work for a startup company, Intellectual Ventures, where she managed patented portfolios for Allied Inventors for another 10 years.  

“We patented all kinds of different technology and different tech sectors,” Buff said. “Then, essentially, either licensed the product, which was a patent or portfolio, or sold the rights to the patents to a lot of companies, like Google and Amazon.” 

However, funds for her sector started to wind down, and Buff knew she would soon be out of a job. The long commute to downtown Seattle was wearing on her, anyway, and she was ready to come back home. Scrolling through Facebook on the couch one night, Buff came across an ad listing for the Red Dog Saloon, an iconic pizza joint in Libby.   

She’d always thought about opening a business, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.  

“I felt like, at the time, the stars were really aligning,” she said. “This was going to be my end game.”  

She returned to Libby in 2020 and started operating the Red Dog Saloon that April. But when she couldn’t find anyone to work full-time, Buff quickly backed out of the sale. 

“My number one objective was really just to stay in Libby,” Buff said. “I had made that conscious decision when I decided to buy the bar. I wanted to be home. I wanted to be back in Montana.”  

When the position for Lincoln County Elections Administrator opened, she didn’t hesitate to throw her hat in the ring. She knew her past 20 years of experience working in the legal realm would make her a solid candidate. 

“It’s not a position that is really subject to gray areas. It’s very black and white,” Buff said. 

Administering elections is all about following the rules and knowing how to interpret the law, which can often be ambiguous, she said.  

She worked in Lincoln County for about two years, from spring of 2021 through March 2023, and soon became well acquainted with the election community through state conventions and training.  

That was how she met Flathead County Clerk and Recorder Debbie Pierson. Pierson had just hired an elections administrator to replace former Elections Manager Monica Eisenzimer, but the new hire needed help.  

“Deb reached out and said, ‘Hey, would you mind coming on board and working as an interim manager?” Buff recalled. “I agreed to do so and then, of course, that morphed into a full-time position.” 

OVER THE course of her five-year career administering elections, Buff is still finding new ways to improve the process, especially as the November midterm election approaches.  

“It’s such a critical part of our democracy,” she said.  

It helps to have an amazing team to work with, who also feel the heat during election season. There’s a lot of trauma bonding in running an election, Buff said. “The pressure is incredible,” she said. “You really find out quickly if it’s worth your salt or not.” 

To relieve some of the pressure, Buff likes to shred down the mountain on her snowboard, hike when the weather turns nice or snuggle up with her two “very needy” dogs, a bull terrier named Chico and a chocolate Chesapeake lab named Lady.  

Buff has had Lady since her dad died, and she can’t help about worry about the fact her dog is turning 14 in September. The fall season is a chaotic time for the Elections Department, Buff said, as her team preps for the November elections.  

“That’s one of the things that’s definitely been weighing on my mind,” Buff said.  

She focuses on giving her dog the best life possible, and remains grateful for the one she’s lived herself over the past 30 years.  

“I have definitely been fortunate over the years,” Buff said. “You work hard, and you have a little bit of intellect and talent and apply yourself ... you can do a lot of things.” 

Report for America Reporter Hannah Shields can be reached at 406-758-4439 or [email protected]. If you value local journalism, pledge your support at dailyinterlake.com/support.