To protect election workers, Ohio senators would hide their addresses

A bipartisan pair of Ohio senators want to shield election officials’ addresses from public records requests. Sens. Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green and Bill DeMora, D-Columbus, would extend a protection already provided to police and court officials to Ohio election workers.

Growing threats

In her committee testimony, Gavarone emphasized the escalating threats against election workers. She highlighted letters sent to officials in Washington, Oregon, Nevada, California, and Georgia with fentanyl in the envelope.

“Closer to home,” she added, “a (board of elections) member from my district explained that during the 2022 midterm’s one of their polling locations received threat of a mass shooting. Just this year, this same election official said someone threatened to ‘whip my ass’ and another threatened to come to his home.”

The proposal’s changes are very straightforward. An existing public records exemption bars access to information like the residential address or phone number of “designated public service workers.” That exemption extends to their spouses and children as well.

The list of such workers is already pretty long. In addition to police, parole, and corrections officers, it includes prosecutors, judges, and other court officials. Firefighters and EMTs are eligible, too. And the same protections even extend to pharmacy board members and psychiatric hospital employees among others.

“This bill would simply add our full-time election workers to this list,” DeMora said, going on to note the bill came from a National Conference of State Legislatures meeting.

“Election workers are vital to the functioning of our state,” he said. “I think this is the minimum we can do to ensure that their job of (providing) fair and safe elections can continue.”

“This is not a red or blue issue — this is a public safety issue,” Gavarone insisted. “The increased political polarization of our country has put our election officials in danger this legislation will give those people the peace of mind they deserve.”

Growing threats

The anecdotal examples Gavaorne cited underscore a national trend — since 2020, election workers have faced a sharp increase in threats.

Earlier this year, The Brennan Center released polling that indicated 45% of local election officials are worried about their safety or the safety of their colleagues. Eleven percent said they expected to leave before the 2024 election. Nearly the same amount said they started after the 2020 election.

An election threats task force within the Department of Justice announced its ninth conviction in August. Last week, a federal court jury hit Rudy Giuliani with a $148 million verdict for defaming two Georgia election workers. The former New York mayor falsely accused them of election fraud.

Researchers identify former President Trump’s false claims of a stolen election as the genesis for these threats.

“The unprecedented number of false claims alleging election fraud in 2020 ignited a barrage of threats against election workers in what had traditionally been a very low threat environment,” the Bipartisan Policy Center notes in its recommendations for the DOJ task force.

The Center for American Progress argues these “pervasive, unrelenting” election threats “sprouted from disinformation and lies spread by former President Donald Trump and his allies in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election.”

On Nov. 6, Gavarone endorsed Trump for president.

Speaking after the hearing, Gavarone reiterated her claim that threats against election workers is not a red issue or a blue issue.

“The problem has been ongoing for years,” she argued. “And there’s no correlation — this legislation has no correlation to President Trump. This is about protecting election workers.”