Georgia Is Latest State To Prepare Poll Workers For Threats From Election Deniers

Topline

Georgia became the latest state Monday to announce efforts to protect election workers from election-day chaos, debuting a text-alert system that allows workers to report threats at their polling locations—a precautionary measure after election officials nationwide reported online and in-person threats and harassment as Trump supporters denied the outcome of the 2020 election.

WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 21: Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State, testifies during the … [+] fourth hearing on the January 6th investigation in the Cannon House Office Building on June 21, 2022 in Washington, DC. The bipartisan committee, which has been gathering evidence for almost a year related to the January 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol, is presenting its findings in a series of televised hearings. On January 6, 2021, supporters of former President Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol Building during an attempt to disrupt a congressional vote to confirm the electoral college win for President Joe Biden. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

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Key Facts

Georgia’s alert system—which is operated by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office and went live Monday—allows county poll managers to send messages to a five-digit number notifying state election officials and law enforcement of any threats, Raffensperger’s office told NBC and later confirmed to Forbes.

The system comes after Georgia election officials were subjected to threats following the 2020 election, including Raffensperger, who has said his family was forced into hiding because election deniers sent death threats, gathered outside his home and broke into a family member’s house after he refused to block President Joe Biden’s win.

Other states including Oregon, Colorado and Maine have announced enhanced penalties for threats against election workers, while California adopted legislation in September allowing election workers to enroll in a state program to keep their mailing addresses confidential.

The FBI issued a warning last week about threats and harassment against election officials nationwide ranging from local clerks to Secretaries of State, promising to “identify, mitigate, and investigate reports of threats targeting election workers.”

The Department of Justice has identified over 100 cases of hostility or harassment toward poll workers that could meet the threshold for a criminal investigation, and federal prosecutors have brought charges in four cases in the last year, the DOJ said in August, after the agency launched a task force on election threats last year.

Key Background

Over the last two years, former President Donald Trump and his allies have repeated false claims about vote-rigging in the 2020 presidential election, often leveling baseless allegations about fraudulent voting machines and phony ballots. The claims sometimes led to threats against election workers: In one striking incident, an Atlanta poll worker named Wandrea “Shaye” Moss testified before the House January 6 committee in June that she and her mother, Ruby Freeman, were forced to go into hiding after receiving death threats and enduring racial slurs based on false accusations that they counted fake mail-in ballots. This tactic came to a head on January 6, 2021, when Trump pressed Congress to contest Biden’s victory while a mob of Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol. In the lead-up to this year’s midterm elections, right-wing conspiracy theorists and some organized conservative groups have begun mobilizing again to sow doubt about voting. In at least one case in South Carolina, activists demanded to inspect election equipment in search of ways to claim they aren’t functioning properly during a primary race earlier this year, the New York Times reports.

Tangent

Trump-aligned Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake refused to say in an interview with CNN on Sunday if she would accept the results of her own election, while continuing to dispute that Biden was the fair winner of the 2020 presidential election.

Big Number

39%. That’s the percentage of GOP voters who said they were likely to blame election fraud if their party does not gain control of Congress in next month’s midterms, according to an Axios-Ipsos poll released last week. By comparison, 25% of Democrats said they would point to fraud if their party loses Congress.

Surprising Fact

In some cases, threats to elections—and to poll workers—are digital. Last week, the cybersecurity firm Trellix said election officials in Pennsylvania and Arizona have faced a surge in malicious phishing emails ahead of the midterms, including attempts to steal their passwords by sending bogus election documents. And Politico notes cellular modems that send out constant ballot-counting results on election night can be hacked, a tactic that may not actually change vote counts but could create doubt and confusion about the results.