Elections Officials Prepping For (More) Terrorism
Because some people really do not want democracy!
Giving new meaning to the term “battleground states,” the Wall Street Journal reports (supposedly free link) that elections officials around the country are bracing for terrorism in November, of the domestic Trump-supporting few-fries-short-of-a-Happy Meal kind.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, nearly 40 percent of local election officials reported experiencing threats, harassment, or abuse due to their jobs. And about one-third of Republicans in a new poll say that if Trump loses, “true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.”
How and why a nepo baby in clown makeup and shoe lifts inspires them so, we will never understand. But the words he moans have real consequences.
In Arizona,
On Election Day, as workers tabulate ballots behind new fencing and concrete barriers, drones will patrol the skies overhead, police snipers will perch on rooftops and mounted patrols will stand ready.
Across the state, election workers have gone through active-shooter drills and learned to barricade themselves or wield fire hoses to repel armed mobs. At the ready are trauma kits containing tourniquets and bandages designed to pack chest wounds and stanch serious bleeding.
Arizona has been fortifying its systems against cyberattacks, monitoring social media threats, and training staff to spot AI deepfakes. Elections facilities have added bulletproof glass, bollards, and cameras, and have been giving tours to try to reassure the conspiracy-minded, but it doesn’t seem to be helping much.
According to most polls, Trump is ahead by 1-3 points in Arizona. The top election official in Maricopa County is a Republican, their Supreme Court is all Republican, and Republicans control the Legislature. Arizona Republicans have already been voter-suppressing as hard as they can, even though so far the only “election fraud” they’ve found has been from, you guessed it, other Republicans.
PREVIOUSLY!
Do the election deniers care? Heck no! They’re still photographing the license plates of workers leaving the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center, threatening bombings and mass shootings of poll workers, and threatening to harm poll workers’ children. Whatever Russian-sponsored Rumble channels these people are watching is some powerful stuff.
And the chaos is not confined to Arizona. Officials in 20 states received suspicious packages last month. In Colorado, county clerks and elections officials are stocking up on bulletproof vests, and Narcan, after envelopes of white powder with traces of fentanyl arrived in ballot envelopes. Ohio has equipped workers with radios, and is planning for increased security checks. Georgia became the first state to require election-law training for police. That’s so they know to arrest communists who are trying to give water or a bag of chips to people waiting in line, sure, but hopefully also to de-escalate Y’All Qaeda situations and discourage anyone illegally carrying a gun within 150 feet of a polling place, too.
It’s all some pretty freaky shit. The aim is clearly to suppress voting, to intimidate elections officials, and to make everybody throw up their hands and be like “welp, voting has become a hassle, so guess we’ll just have to be a dictatorship now!”
That’s not going to happen, but man, it’s going to be a long election season.
repeating myself
I am an election supervisor for the state of Rhode Island, blue through and through
I do not myself feel to be in any danger, but please let me express my deep and profound antipathy toward any American who would interfere in that most basic element of democracy
fuck them. fuck them very much
"Whether it's death threats against Democrats or condemning death threats against Democrats, both sides need to tone down their rhetoric"