Election workers are facing more threats, and Trump's dangerous rhetoric is to blame
She’s nervous. But she’s got three kids at home, and in this economy, it’s a job, and she needs it.
She didn’t know just how dangerous it would be, though. And now, as the big day gets closer and closer, she’s just hoping to survive it.
She was prepared for the worst. She had a five-hour training session in which local law enforcement showed her what to do in the case of an attack. She was trained in de-escalation techniques and taught what to do in the case of an active shooter.
She knows the buildings are secure. In the past few years, as threats have risen, security has become priority No. 1.
So there are security cameras. Doors that open only with badges. Protective fencing around the job site. Newly installed bulletproof glass. That last one gave her the chills.
But it was necessary, and she knew it — she heard about the time a gun was fired at another office’s window. She knew about the swatting calls to the homes of other workers. She remembers the dozens of death threats, the letters filled with white powder, and the suspicious packages.
The idea that she was risking her life to do this job was becoming more and more real with every passing day.
All this to protect her from…what? From whom? Terrorists? Assassins? Gangsters? Criminals?
No. All this is to protect her from election deniers.
She is a hypothetical election worker, representing countless election workers all over the country who are tasked with the now-dangerous job of protecting our elections — and the people administering them. And all of these security precautions are real, as a chilling new AP report has revealed, and they’re being installed everywhere from Georgia to North Carolina.
Countless threats since 2020 election
The measures are a response to the countless threats against election workers and officials over the past few years.
Per the AP: “Election offices and those who run them have been targets of harassment and even death threats since the 2020 presidential election, primarily by people acting on former President Donald Trump’s lies that the election was stolen from him through widespread fraud or rigged voting machines."
It’s because of these threats that many election workers have left the job and new workers are hard to recruit. They’re fearful of the harassment and worse from Trump election deniers, having not signed up for bulletproof glass, panic buttons and Narcan kits, the unimaginable and sickening hallmarks of today’s elections in America.
Just ask Shaye Moss.
The former Georgia poll worker, along with her mother Ruby Freeman, were the target of Trump and his thug lawyer Rudy Giuliani in 2020, baselessly accused of ballot-tampering.
They were compared to drug dealers, and Giuliani called for their homes to be searched. Trump said Freeman’s name 18 times in a call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
Moss and Freeman became the subjects of endless harassment and death threats. Trump’s election deniers left threatening and racist messages on her Facebook page, like, “Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.” Moss had to leave her job, change her appearance and go into hiding.
Now, Trump and his running mate JD Vance are scolding us to tone down our rhetoric, to "love thy neighbor” — as an Ohio neighborhood endures bomb threats at schools and hospitals over their false stories of migrant pet-eating rings. They’re blaming Democrats for inciting violence against him.
This premise requires you to be lobotomized.
It requires you to forget about Trump’s violent rhetoric around election workers; or health administrators and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who also endured death threats; or the violent rhetoric that inspired a Utah man to attempt to assassinate President Joe Biden; or the right-wing conspiracy theories that inspired a lunatic to attack Paul Pelosi with a hammer.
Or the inciteful rhetoric that led a violent mob to attack the Capitol and scream “Hang Mike Pence!” on Jan. 6; or Trump’s unending attacks on the press; or his myriad threats against political enemies; or his personal attacks on judges, lawyers, clerks and witnesses; or the 54 criminal cases in which Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts or threats.
Or his violent rhetoric toward protesters; or his calls for violence against migrants; or his praise of violent neo-Nazis, violent white supremacists, violent dictators, violent Jan. 6 criminals.
So if you’re concerned about violent rhetoric — and we all should be — remember that Trump’s is why our elections now shamefully require active-shooter training, bulletproof glass, panic buttons, Narcan, bomb-sniffing dogs, security cameras, security badges, fortified fences and biohazard mitigation. It wasn’t always this way.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
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