One in three U.S. election officials feels unsafe - survey
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[June 17, 2021]
(Reuters) - One in three U.S.
election officials feels unsafe on the job and one in six reported being
threatened because of their work, according to a survey published
Wednesday by New York University’s nonpartisan Brennan Center for
Justice.
The results reflect a reckoning in the wake of election in which the
loser, former Republican President Donald Trump, spent months falsely
alleging the contest was "rigged" against him. Those claims sparked
threats and actual violence, such as the deadly U.S. Capitol riots on
Jan. 6.
A Reuters investigation published on Friday
https://www.reuters.com/
investigates/special-report/usa-trump-georgia-threats
found that election workers and their families continue to face threats
and intimidation months after Trump's loss in November to Democrat Joe
Biden. The intimidation has been particularly severe in Georgia, where
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other Republican election
officials refuted Trump's stolen-election claims.
Election officials' fears for their safety portend major staffing
problems in future votes, the Brennan Center said.
“Large numbers of election officials have resigned in the past year,
raising alarm bells. But the wave of departures could soon turn into a
tsunami,” said a report produced jointly by the Brennan Center and the
Bipartisan Policy Center, a centrist Washington think tank.
The Brennan Center surveyed 233 local election officials across the
country between April 1 and 7. The survey had a 6.4% margin of error,
the center said.
Many election workers who were surveyed blamed social media for
spreading falsehoods. About 54% of election officials said social media
made their work more dangerous and 78% said it made it more difficult.
Those findings reflect a dangerous rise in disinformation, the report
from the two research organizations said.
Trump's false claims that voter fraud cost him the election spread
quickly among supporters over social media platforms such as Facebook
and Twitter and other online forums.
"This disinformation has indelibly changed the lives and careers of
election officials," the report said, calling on technology and media
companies to help slow the spread of disinformation.
The two research centers urged the Department of Justice to create "an
election threats task force" to work with federal, state, and local law
enforcement to investigate threats against officials and poll workers.
The report urged states to protect election employees' personal
information and pay for security measures such as home intrusion
detection systems.
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A DeKalb County election worker wearing a 'Good Trouble' facemask
sorts empty absentee ballot envelopes following the U.S. Senate
runoff elections in Decatur, Georgia, U.S., January 6, 2021.
REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage/File Photo
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland acknowledged
the rising threat to election workers in a speech on Friday.
Garland, a Biden appointee, said his Justice Department will
aggressively protect voting rights at a time when many
Republican-led states are tightening election laws.
"We have not been blind to the dramatic increase in menacing and
violent threats against all manner of state and local election
workers, ranging from the highest administrators to volunteer poll
workers," he said. "Such threats undermine our electoral process and
violate a myriad of federal laws."
U.S. elections are run by two kinds of workers - permanent staffers
employed by officials such as secretaries of state, and large
numbers of temporary workers brought in to manage polling places on
election days. Those temporary workers are vital to the process -
guiding voters, answering questions, verifying IDs - and they work
long hours for low pay.
Even before November's contested election, counties and local
governments struggled to fill these roles. The federal U.S. Election
Assistance Commission found that in the 2016 presidential vote, 65%
of jurisdictions nationwide reported that it was “very difficult” or
“somewhat difficult” to recruit enough poll workers.
The Brennan Center report said that as of last year, almost 35% of
local election officials were eligible to retire by the 2024
presidential election.
“It is not clear who will replace them, nor whether those willing to
take the job in the future will share the commitment to free and
fair elections that was so critical in 2020,” the report said.
(Reporting by Jason Szep. Editing by Brian Thevenot)
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