Oct 9 (Reuters) – When voters in Jefferson County, Colorado, cast their ballots in the Nov. 8 midterm elections, they will see security guards stationed outside the busiest polling places.
At the election office in Flagstaff, Arizona, voters will encounter bulletproof glass and will need to press a buzzer to enter. In Tallahassee, Florida, election workers will count ballots in a building recently reinforced with walls made of super-tough Kevlar fiber.
Spurred by a flood of threats and frightening behavior from conspiracy theorists and others upset by former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat, some election officials across the United States are beefing up their operations as they prepare for another divisive election.
SPOOKED WORKERS
One in five US election officials said they are unlikely to remain in their jobs until 2024, when Americans go to the polls again to elect a president, according to a Brennan Center for Justice survey released in March. See the article : The Laguna Beach Art Festival showcases the artwork of OC students. They cited stress, attacks by politicians and impending retirement as reasons.
The rest of the 2020 election bitterness has also scared away many of the temporary workers who check in voters, count ballots and perform other tasks that make elections possible, officials say.
Philadelphia raised wages for Election Day workers from $120 to $250 to help with hiring that has been complicated by fears of harassment as well as a tight labor market, said Omar Sabir, one of the city’s three election commissioners. After receiving death threats in 2020, he himself changed the way he travels.
“You have to keep your head on the turnpike,” said Sabir. “Sometimes I have nightmares thinking about it, someone coming up to me and doing me harm.”
PROTECTIVE MEASURES
Many election officials blame misinformation, such as Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, for the rise in threats. This may interest you : Nikola founder asks judge to block evidence of “wealth”, “lifestyle” in fraud case.
Justin Roebuck, the Republican incumbent of rural, conservative Ottawa County, Michigan, said Trump’s rhetoric has “really poisoned the well,” inspiring other candidates to cast doubt on the election. In Michigan, Republican candidates for governor, attorney general and other positions have questioned the outcome of the 2020 election.
Roebuck’s office this year held a three-hour role-playing exercise with local emergency officials to plan how to respond to violent incidents. They also printed a pamphlet explaining voting procedures that workers could submit to people to reduce conflict with anyone who aggressively questioned their work.
In addition to adding Kevlar walls, the Leon County, Florida, elections office held active shooter training for its workers, installed bullet- and bomb-resistant glass and invested in security cameras and video storage, according to Election Supervisor Mark Earley, who says he receives frequent hostile and vulgar calls from strangers.
“I have to worry about my workers leaving the building and walking to their cars after dark,” he said.
Earley paid for his facility’s security boost with a 2020 grant from the Center for Technology and Civic Life, a nonprofit group funded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But Florida and 25 other states have since banned such outside funding.
FUNDING WOES
Election officials say they have struggled to get federal aid for security measures. This may interest you : The country punishes health practitioners | Washington State Department of Health.
The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security said this year that funds would be available for elections office security, but that money has been picked up by local police departments and others more familiar with the programs, said Amy Cohen, director of the National Association of State Election Directors.
A Justice Department spokesman said the agency’s Election Threat Task Force has worked since its launch in 2021 to direct federal aid to local election offices for security improvements and urged Congress to provide more such funding.
Some offices have paid for security improvements by cutting back elsewhere. Jefferson County, Colorado, has cut back on voter mailings to pay for four security guards to monitor the four busiest polling places in the weeks leading up to the election.
“For us, it pays off because we have the ability to be proactive rather than reactive,” said George Stern, Jefferson County Clerk.
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Reporting by Andy Sullivan in Washington, D.C., and Julia Harta in New York; Additional reporting by Linda So, editing by Ross Colvin and Claudia Parsons
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
