In the run-up to next month’s presidential election, election sites and personnel may be exposed to significant physical danger, and the security of ballots and the integrity of vote counting may also be at risk.
Over the past four years, an alarming number of election officials and workers across the country have believed widespread lies about voter fraud and fraudulent voting machines that allegedly helped steal the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump. have been intimidated and intimidated by people who appear to be The Justice Department has charged more than a dozen people across the country with threatening election officials since 2021. President Biden said Friday that he was confident the election would be “free and fair,” but he didn’t know if it would be “peaceful.”
The good news is that local authorities and the Department of Justice have taken some steps to address this issue. There are sporadic reports that election officials in various towns have strengthened security, including requesting additional police presence. And last month, Attorney General Merrick Garland created a task force to “aggressively investigate and prosecute threats” against election officials, citing an “unprecedented surge in threats” against those administering elections. The convocation was announced.
The bad news is that these laudable efforts are not enough. Election officials are not law enforcement experts. They lack the resources to adequately provide for their own safety. Federal prosecution is essential, but it is not the same as protection.
In particular, governors in seven battleground states will need to further ensure the physical security of election workers and the ballots themselves, not only on Election Day, but also through vote counting and certification by Congress on January 6, 2025. When an election is as close as current polling suggests, even a small portion of ballots destroyed in a battleground state, whether intentionally destroyed or inadvertently damaged by rampaging protesters, is a serious threat. , the ability to determine the winner of an election could be jeopardized.
In addition to the “unprecedented spike in threats” that Garland cited, there is other worrying evidence pointing to the potential for violence. The Chicago Project on Security and Threats, a research organization I run at the University of Chicago, has been conducting a quarterly national survey on Americans’ attitudes toward political violence since the summer of 2021.
The latest poll, conducted from September 12th to September 16th, found that support for political violence was alarmingly high. Remarkably, this attitude was bipartisan. Nearly 6 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that “the use of force to restore Donald Trump to the presidency is justified.” Just over 8% agreed or strongly agreed that the use of force to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president is justified.
These results reflect a relatively stable pattern over the past year. And in this area, public attitudes can become a reality. Historically, the higher the level of support for political violence, the more likely it is that actual political violence will occur. Indeed, there are often unique psychosocial reasons why people behave violently. But public support for violence can lead people to believe that their acts of violence are popular, leading them to act (as was the case, for example, with Trump’s would-be assassin).
If you’re wondering what “use of force” means to respondents, for more than half of them it means serious violence. In a special survey we conducted in July after the first Trump assassination attempt, 38% of those who supported the use of force against Mr. It turns out that it means something like this. Meanwhile, the remaining 30% meant violent protests like those on January 6 and other efforts to overthrow the Trump administration.
Concerns about election fraud were prominent in our latest survey. About 40% of Republicans still believe the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump, and about 20% of Republicans said, “The people who stormed the Capitol on the same day” were found to agree or strongly agree. About 9% of Democrats and 11% of Republicans say they would participate in a protest against an unfair election for their preferred presidential candidate, even if it might turn violent. .
Republican and Democratic governors in the seven battleground states should do two things. First, the two countries jointly issued a public statement, disseminated widely by video, condemning all forms of political violence, especially against election officials and counting facilities, and stressing that it is illegal, immoral, and anti-American. Should. Just as public support can encourage political violence, public condemnation can also weaken political violence.
Second, the governor should order relevant agencies under his jurisdiction to conduct detailed security assessments of election venues and provide the necessary resources to ensure the safety of election venues. This includes the presence of police in precincts on election day (taking care to avoid any appearance of voter intimidation) and the presence of ballots by election officials and central counting centers during the subsequent official counting. protection should be included. To increase the trust of the public and election officials, the governor should make some of these security efforts transparent.
If we hadn’t recently witnessed some of the worst election-related violence in modern American history, including the January 6th riot, the attempted kidnapping of Speaker Nancy Pelosi ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, and two assassination attempts on Mr. Trump. It may make sense to take more modest precautions. But the past four years have shown us that we live in a dangerous new world.
