Election officials throughout the United States are fortifying election offices with security fencing, cameras, plexiglass, and more amid heightened concerns over election workers’ safety heading into the November midterm elections.
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The county election office in Madison, Wis., and a vote tabulation center in Maricopa County, Ariz., are among the offices strengthening security, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
Benjamin Hovland from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission said threats of violence against election workers have increased nationwide.
“This isn’t a red-state issue or a blue-state issue,” Hovland said in a recent interview. “This is a national issue, where the professional public servants that run our elections have been subjected to an unprecedented level of threats, harassment and intimidating behavior.”
Scott Jarrett, the co-director of Maricopa County’s elections department, said the county has installed security glass, hired private security guards, and added new security cameras — including nearly two dozen that can live stream — at its tabulation and elections center.
The county also added a layer of protective film to the center’s windows, which obscures employees’ faces and is harder to break.
“Even someone with a hammer who was banging against it, I think the manufacturer said that someone could be doing that for a consistent five minutes, and it’s not going to break,” Jarrett said.
Jarret said the county even built a vault complete with a fire suppression system to hold ballots.
“There’s not an election official probably in the country right now who doesn’t have some concerns,” he said.
Last week, emails revealed that the Biden administration colluded with social media companies to censor Americans in an effort that involved at least 45 federal officials at the White House, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, State Department, Treasury Department, U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and more.
After the Biden administration and Big Tech collusion was revealed, President Joe Biden attacked “MAGA” Republicans as a threat to “democracy.“
“They promote authoritarian leaders and they fan the flames of political violence,” said Biden, who vowed to unite Americans. “They’re a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.”
The president’s remarks came just weeks after FBI agents, under the direction of his administration’s Department of Justice, raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The raid came amid ongoing disputes over records from Trump’s presidency that he had kept in his possession after leaving office. DOJ officials have said they recovered classified documents, though Trump has claimed he declassified the records in question.
