By CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY Related Press
MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) — The election director in Cobb County, an Atlanta suburb the place votes will likely be fiercely contested on this yr’s presidential race, not too long ago organized a five-hour coaching session. The main target wasn’t solely on the nuts-and-bolts of working this yr’s election. As a substitute, it introduced collectively election workers and regulation enforcement to strategize on tips on how to maintain employees secure and the method of voting and ballot-counting safe.
Having a neighborhood sheriff’s deputy at early voting places and panic buttons that join ballot managers to a neighborhood 911 dispatcher are among the many added safety steps the workplace is taking this yr.
Tate Fall, Cobb County’s election director, mentioned she was motivated to behave after listening to considered one of her ballot employees describe being confronted in the course of the state’s presidential main in March by an agitated voter who the employee seen was carrying a gun. The scenario ended peacefully, however the ballot employee was shaken.
“That made it actually actual for me — that it’s really easy for one thing to go sideways in life, interval, not to mention the atmosphere of Georgia and elections,” Fall mentioned. “I simply can’t have somebody being harmed on my conscience.”
Throughout the nation, native election administrators are beefing up their safety prematurely of Election Day on Nov. 5 to maintain their employees and polling locations secure whereas additionally making certain that ballots and voting procedures received’t be tampered with. Their concern isn’t simply theoretical. Election workplaces and those that run them have been targets of harassment and even dying threats for the reason that 2020 presidential election, primarily by individuals appearing on former President Donald Trump’s lies that the election was stolen from him by way of widespread fraud or rigged voting machines.
The deal with safety comes as threats of political violence have been on the rise. Trump was the goal of a potential assassination try over the weekend, simply 9 weeks after one other risk on his life. Federal brokers final yr fatally shot a Trump supporter who threatened to assassinate President Joe Biden, and the husband of former Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi was severely injured in a hammer assault by a person selling right-wing conspiracy theories.
In simply the final yr, a gun was fired at a window of the Cuyahoga County, Ohio, election workplace, a number of election workplaces in 5 states have been despatched letters crammed with a white powder that in some circumstances examined constructive for the highly effective opioid fentanyl, and bogus 911 calls have been made to the properties of high state election officers in Georgia, Maine, Michigan and Missouri in a probably harmful scenario often called swatting.
“This is without doubt one of the issues that I’ve to say is simply loopy, outrageous to me — the election threats to employees of each events and their households, the bullying, the harassment,” Jen Easterly, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Company, mentioned throughout a latest agency-sponsored on-line occasion. “These people, they don’t seem to be doing it for pay. They’re not doing it for glory. They’re doing it as a result of they consider it’s the suitable factor to do to defend our democracy.”
Her company has accomplished greater than 1,000 voluntary bodily safety assessments for election workplaces for the reason that begin of 2023. Election officers have been utilizing that assist to establish gaps and request cash from their native governments to make upgrades.
In addition they have been aided by a U.S. Election Help Fee choice in 2022 that allowed sure federal cash to go towards security measures resembling badge readers, cameras and protecting fencing.
California’s Los Angeles County and Durham County, North Carolina, can have new workplaces with vital safety upgrades for this yr’s election. They embody bulletproof glass, safety cameras and doorways that open solely with badges. Election employees throughout the nation additionally can have new procedures for dealing with mail, together with kits of Narcan, the nasal spray used for unintentional overdoses.
In Durham County, a central function of the brand new workplace will likely be a mail processing room with a separate exhaust system to comprise probably hazardous substances despatched within the mail.
“We’ve numerous the explanation why this funding was important,” mentioned the county’s election director, Derek Bowens, pointing to threats in opposition to election officers in Michigan and Arizona and the suspicious letters despatched to workplaces in Oregon, Washington, California and Georgia.
Bowens and others who’ve labored in elections for years mentioned their jobs have modified considerably. Threats and harassment are one motive why some election officers throughout the nation have been leaving. In some locations, election employees are being skilled in de-escalation strategies and the way to reply to an lively shooter.
“Safety to this extent wasn’t on the record earlier than. Now it’s,” mentioned Cari-Ann Burgess, the chief election official in Washoe County, Nevada. “We’ve drills that we work by way of, we’ve got emergency plans that we’ve got ready. We’re much more cautious now than we ever have been.”
In Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, a few four-hour drive from the place Trump was wounded in an assassination try throughout a marketing campaign rally in July, election officers estimate they now spend about 40% of their time on safety and dealing with native regulation enforcement and emergency managers on election plans. This includes common trainings to arrange for something that may intrude with voting or counting ballots.
“It’s very unstable, and Luzerne County displays what’s going on throughout the nation” mentioned County Supervisor Romilda Crocamo, who oversees the election workplace workers. “Evidently individuals are very emotional, and generally that emotion escalates.”
Crocamo is contemplating buying panic buttons for ballot managers who will likely be at some 130 voting places all through the county on Election Day. State regulation in Pennsylvania prohibits regulation enforcement from being inside polling places, however Crocamo and her staff are talking with native officers about having emergency responders with their radios on the websites ought to one thing occur.
Many native officers mentioned they’ve elevated the regulation enforcement presence at election workplaces, together with on election night time when ballot employees are bringing in ballots and different materials from voting places. Added regulation enforcement is also deliberate within the weeks after Election Day, in the course of the canvass of the votes and certifying the outcomes.
In Los Angeles, regulation enforcement canine groups will likely be serving to scan incoming mail ballots for suspicious substances. It’s a part of an up to date strategy that features a new $29 million election workplace that consolidates operations that beforehand had been unfold throughout the county.
Dean Logan, who oversees elections for Los Angeles County, mentioned safety stays a high concern. He pointed to social media posts suggesting methods to wreck poll drop containers and hamper mail voting. He mentioned the letters with white powder have been designed to disrupt election operations, and it’s the accountability of election officers to make sure that doesn’t occur.
The workplace can have round the clock safety and extra staffing from the county sheriff’s division for the November election.
“It’s vital to me that we will inform voters they don’t must be fearful concerning the safety of their ballots,” he mentioned. “We’ve taken steps to maintain them secure.”
Election officers say safety is a balancing act, making certain security whereas ensuring polling locations are welcoming areas for voters and offering sufficient entry to election workplaces so the general public can belief the method.
In Michigan 4 years in the past, a big crowd of Trump supporters created a tense and chaotic scene once they gathered outdoors Detroit’s poll counting operation the day after the election, chanting “Cease the depend!” as they banged on the home windows and demanded entry.
Detroit Metropolis Clerk Janice Winfrey mentioned her workplace is significantly better ready this time, with extra cameras, armed safety and bulletproof glass. Observers will now be checked in and screened by safety outdoors a big room used for counting ballots on the metropolis’s conference middle.
“My greatest concern was to guard the workers and the method,” Winfrey mentioned. “And in doing so, our constructing — it could look the identical, but it surely’s not the identical.”
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