Election officials prepare for threats with panic buttons and bulletproof glass

MARIETTA, Ga. — The elections director for Cobb County, an Atlanta suburb where votes will be hotly contested in this year’s presidential race, recently held a five-hour training session. The focus wasn’t just on the nuts and bolts of running this year’s election. Instead, the session brought together poll workers and law enforcement to strategize on how to keep workers safe and the voting and ballot-counting process secure.

Additional security measures the office is taking this year include the presence of a local sheriff’s deputy at early voting locations and panic buttons connecting poll workers to a local 911 dispatcher.

Tate Fall, Cobb County’s elections director, said she was motivated to act after hearing one of her poll workers recount being confronted during the state’s presidential primary in March by an agitated voter who the poll worker said was carrying a gun. The situation ended peacefully, but the poll worker was shaken.

“It really made me realize how easy it is for something to go wrong in life, period, let alone the environment in Georgia and the election,” Fall said. “I just can’t have someone who’s been hurt on my conscience.”

Across the country, local election officials are ramping up security ahead of Election Day on Nov. 5 to keep their workers and polling places safe while ensuring that ballots and voting procedures won’t be tampered with. Their concerns aren’t just theoretical. Election offices and those who run them have been the target of harassment and even death threats since the 2020 presidential election, largely from people acting on former President Donald Trump’s lies that the election was stolen from him through widespread fraud or rigged voting machines.

The focus on security comes as threats of political violence have mounted. Trump was the target of a potential assassination attempt over the weekend, just nine weeks after another death threat. Last year, federal agents shot and killed a Trump supporter who threatened to assassinate President Joe Biden, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was critically injured in a hammer attack by a man promoting far-right conspiracy theories.

In the past year alone, a gun was fired through a window at the Cuyahoga County, Ohio, election office, multiple election offices in five states received letters filled with a white powder that in some cases tested positive for the powerful opioid fentanyl, and fake 911 calls were placed to the homes of top election officials in Georgia, Maine, Michigan, and Missouri in a potentially dangerous situation known as swatting.

“This is one of the things I have to say that I think is just crazy, outrageous: the electoral threats against workers of both parties and their families, the intimidation, the harassment,” Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, said at a recent online event sponsored by the agency. “These people are not doing it for the money. They’re not doing it for the glory. They’re doing it because they believe it’s the right thing to do to defend our democracy.”

His agency has conducted more than 1,000 voluntary physical security assessments for election offices since the start of 2023. Election officials have used that assistance to identify gaps and request money from their local governments to make upgrades.

They were also helped by a 2022 decision by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission that allowed some federal funds to be used to pay for security devices such as badge readers, cameras and protective fencing.

Los Angeles County, California, and Durham County, North Carolina, will have new offices with major security upgrades for this year’s election. They will include bulletproof glass, security cameras and doors that only open with a badge. Election workers across the country will also have new procedures for handling mail, including kits for Narcan, the nasal spray used in cases of accidental overdoses.

In County Durham, a central feature of the new office will be a mailroom with a separate drainage system to contain potentially hazardous substances sent by post.

“We have countless reasons why this investment was essential,” said county elections director Derek Bowens, pointing to threats against election officials in Michigan and Arizona and suspicious letters sent to offices in Oregon, Washington, California and Georgia.

Bowens and others who have worked in elections for years said their jobs have changed dramatically. Threats and harassment are among the reasons some election officials across the country have resigned. In some places, election workers are receiving training in de-escalation techniques and how to respond to an active shooter.

“Security to this extent wasn’t on the list before. Now it is,” said Cari-Ann Burgess, elections supervisor for Washoe County, Nevada. “We have drills that we do, we have contingency plans that we’ve prepared. We’re much more cautious now than we’ve ever been.”

In Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, about a four-hour drive from where Trump was injured in an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in July, election officials estimate they now spend about 40% of their time on security and working with local law enforcement and emergency officials on election plans. That includes regular training to prepare for anything that could interfere with voting or the counting of ballots.

“It’s a very volatile situation, and Luzerne County is reflective of what’s happening across the country,” said County Executive Romilda Crocamo, who oversees the election office staff. “It seems like people are very emotional, and sometimes that emotion gets intensified.”

Crocamo is considering purchasing panic buttons for poll workers who will be at about 130 polling places across the county on Election Day. Pennsylvania law prohibits law enforcement from being inside polling places, but Crocamo and his team are talking to local officials about having emergency responders with radios at the sites if something were to happen.

Many local officials said they have increased law enforcement presence at polling places, particularly on election night, when poll workers bring ballots and other materials from polling stations. Increased law enforcement is also expected in the weeks following Election Day, when ballots are counted and results are certified.

In Los Angeles, law enforcement canine teams will help screen incoming mail ballots for suspicious substances. It’s part of an updated approach that includes a new $29 million elections office that consolidates operations that were previously spread across the county.

Dean Logan, who oversees elections for Los Angeles County, said security remains a major concern. He pointed to social media posts suggesting ways to damage ballot boxes and interfere with mail-in voting. He said the letters containing white powder were designed to disrupt election operations and that it was the responsibility of election officials to ensure that didn’t happen.

The office will have 24-hour security and additional staff from the county sheriff’s department for the November election.

“It’s important to me that we can tell voters that they don’t have to worry about the security of their ballot,” he said. “We’ve taken steps to ensure their security.”

Election officials say security is a balancing act, between providing security while ensuring polling places are welcoming spaces for voters and providing enough access to polling places so the public can trust the process.

Four years ago in Michigan, a large crowd of Trump supporters created a tense and chaotic scene when they gathered outside the Detroit ballot counting center the day after the election, chanting “Stop the count!” while banging on windows and demanding access.

Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey said her office is much better prepared this time around, with more cameras, armed security guards and bulletproof glass. Observers will now be registered and screened by security outside a large room used for counting ballots at the city’s convention center.

“My biggest concern was protecting the staff and the process,” Winfrey said. “And in doing so, our building — even though it looks the same, it’s not the same.”