Despite the fact that 92 percent of election officials across the country have taken steps to protect themselves and the election process since the chaos of 2020, election officials fear for their safety as well as the threat of political interference in November, according to a new survey from the Brennan Center for Justice.
The process leading up to the election is going to be a mess, partly because of this and partly because there will be a lot of new people running elections, some of whom are there because they are right wing zealots who think they can make elections run “more fairly” (i.e. their side should always win). I am hoping that most of that group get educated in how elections actually work and realize they are fair and secure already. Republicans are also moving to block Democratic voting in whatever way they can, some of that interference is going to cause problems.
My biggest worry is after the election, as it will take time to count the votes and the election is expected to be close. Republicans believe that cities full of liberals and minorities cheat because their vote tallies come in later and remove early Republican leads…the obvious reality that it takes more time to count larger districts disagrees with their beliefs that Republicans should always win. There’s a real potential for violence at vote counting centers, especially in the swing states that do mail in ballots (i.e. Arizona) or count more slowly…stopping the “cheating” could destroy lots of ballots if a mob gets into the counting centers. Hopefully the officials and police are prepared for this eventuality…I’m more worried it’s not a bunch of angry MAGAs that does it but prepared strike teams with military experience.
We’ll see if it gets that bad. The very good thing is that Democrats are in control of counting in most of the swing states, and the Republicans running the show in most of the others have shown no patience with cheating at counting votes. Maybe that will be enough for us to have an honest election…hopefully that gives Biden a second term.
Well gee…I wonder who would assault them?
If this keeps up we’ll become Sicily; this is mob-boss terrorism.
election officials fear for their safety as well as the threat of political interference in November
Because of Trump. Only because of Trump.
It would be nice to know more about the nature of those threats to determine what side of the political spectrum they’re coming from. Of course, I assume it’s from the people who’ve been screaming “voter fraud” without supporting evidence for the past several years, but it would be nice for such reports to actually identify the source of the threats and intimidation.
Even here in our Very Blue Maryland county, my Senior Election Judge spouse is already working with his GOP counterpart to get very clear on voter challenges and how to handle them.
A couple elections ago, his counterpart was a GOP Muslim woman who left the district due to harassment–not at voting booth but at her apartment complex. So there are certainly idiots even here.
If it is not already, they need to make threatening election officials as well as any actions beyond threats a FEDERAL crime.
The MAGA fascism is metastasizing.
Nah, The Dumpster Don lit the fire, but there was lots of tinder just waiting to ignite and MAGA politicians are fanning the flames…
Trying to kill the tree by stripping its leaves. But trees are pretty good at growing new ones.
And the ones that aren’t complaining are ready to throw ballots in the incinerator, flash drives down wells, and break open the code on voting machines that they have had since Trump.
Tens of millions of people have been propagandized into these actions by a foreign owned company that has been built to lie to them since the 1980s.
How’s my bet that significant portions of the control of the voting machine companies have been bought up by racist inheritor billionaires.
There’s a reason they want deregulation for every hundred reasons why the regulation was made. Yer unrestrained capitalism, folks.
In other words you acknowledge that Trump was the immediate or proximal cause of the climate of the threat of violence that hangs over American politics like a toxic fog, enveloping all. With his years long effort to overthrow the 2020 election result and ongoing efforts to delegitimize elections more generally, Trump is a cancer on the American experiment in self government of, by and for the people.
What I would like to know is, what can we do about this issue? Are there proactive steps we can take? Social media isn’t anything that can be tamed by simply asking nicely, although I do personally know one election worker who had a sheriff’s deputy parked outside his house 24/7 back in 2020. And that was four years ago. The good news is, the person in question is still in that role. The bad news is, there may be even more malevolent forces at play this time.
You know many of the intimidators will be coming armed. It’s only fair to have both sides on equal footing.
Targeted harrassment is a favored kind of violence widely practiced on the right since forever.
We stakeholders in democracy ought to brainstorm ways to counter/neutralize threat activities in our own neck of the woods.
We can proactively talk up the voting process itself, its meaning and value in our own communities.
Validating the local team of election worker bees to your neighbors before the election can only help.
Happy May Day, my Sisters and Brothers!
Jeez, another reason to vote by mail vs at the OK Corral.
There seems to be no end to the damage TFG has inflicted on this country. I don’t know if any of it can ever be repaired. And to think that such a transparently phony, self-interested narcissist could have convinced so many people that their election system was corrupt just by saying so without any evidence is so disillusioning…
You’d rather innocent people just get shot because Republicans have gone fucking insane?
As a lifelong voter, and an experienced Election Official in Wisconsin for over 12 years, overseeing 4 Wards. The great thing about voting is that it is meant to be equal for all qualified voters. Both Republican and Democratic voters, on the whole reasonable people, who show up every year to vote, agree. But, that has been largely abnegated (not by the normal citizens) by the GOP political schemers, funded by the ultra-wealthy GOP donors/Federalist Society/ALEC promoters, who full-well know that they only way they can win elections is to cheat and create endless legal hurdles to keep “certain people” from voting.
The more we can provide easy voting to anyone who wants to vote, and I mean ANYONE who is ELIGIBLE to vote, the better. By Mail, In person, with booths for the blind, with Absentee ballots, with Curbside voting, (sometime in the future maybe) With secure digital voting.
We should all be preaching this, and supporting these laws, and prevent ANYONE who tries to counter these laws: