Panic buttons, training exercises: Election officials prepare for worst-case scenarios

During and after the 2020 presidential election, some poll workers faced harassment, death threats and armed protesters.

Now, election officials across the country are taking extra steps to ensure poll workers — who keep the wheels of democracy turning — are protected and prepared come Election Day.

In interviews with McClatchy News, officials in three swing states — Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — detailed the security measures they’ve implemented.

“This year, we’ve done tabletop exercises all across the state … gaming out scenarios and making sure that local election officials have a plan for every circumstance,” Mike Hassinger, a spokesperson for the Georgia secretary of state, told McClatchy News.

These exercises have been joined by local law enforcement in addition to officials from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Hassinger said.

“Counties have also supplied panic buttons that will notify law enforcement instantly,” he said.

Hassinger added that concerns about poll workers meddling with the election are unjustified.

“‘Tampering’ with an election is a felony under both Georgia and federal law, and I don’t think any election worker in Georgia is willing to risk jail time over an election,” he said. “They’re professionals who put their heads down and run secure, accurate elections.”

Former President Donald Trump, however, has perpetuated baseless concerns about election workers — in addition to the election process more broadly, which he has called “rigged.”

For example, he reposted a message on social media online in 2023 that said, “START ARRESTING THE POLL WORKERS AND WATCH HOW FAST THEY TELL YOU WHO TOLD THEM TO CHEAT,” according to NPR.

Most of the threats and harassment directed at poll workers during and after the 2020 election came from people motivated by false statements made by Trump about the election being stolen, according to the Associated Press.

A spokesperson for the Department of State in Pennsylvania — perhaps the most crucial battleground state — detailed similar safety protocols.

“Though we cannot prepare for every possible scenario, the Department of State and Pennsylvania’s 67 counties have prepared for potential scenarios and will continue to do so through Election Day and beyond,” the spokesperson said.

Like in Georgia, local election officials have coordinated with state and federal authorities and have been supplied with “physical security training.”

Further, Gov. Josh Shapiro has established an Election Threats Task Force through which law enforcement can identify and combat security threats.

“We regularly exercise all of these practices and preparations through tabletop exercises,” the spokesperson said.

In Mecklenburg County, North Carolina — the second-largest county in the state and which encompasses Charlotte — election officials have undertaken comparable precautionary measures.

“We added additional security measures in our trainings for poll workers and the county has administered additional table top exercises for our Emergency Operation Center including all agencies within the county,” a county spokesperson for the state Board of Elections told McClatchy News.

In an Oct. 15 news conference, Karen Bell, the executive director of the state Board of Elections, provided further details about the state’s plans.

“We have given guidance to our precinct officials, our voting site workers to make sure they know how to deescalate a situation or to call in law enforcement if they need assistance with disruption or peacekeeping,” Bell said. “We have talked about physical security measures that everyone should be exercising in terms of how they set up their offices, how they come and go from the voting sites and come and go from the offices.”

“We will certainly do everything necessary to keep our workers safe if the situation were to turn ugly,” she added.

It’s not just election officials in swing states that have adopted additional security measures for polling workers.

According to a May survey by the Brennan Center for Justice, the vast majority of local election officials, 92%, have beefed up security for poll workers since 2020.

This story was originally published October 24, 2024 at 5:32 PM with the headline "Panic buttons, training exercises: Election officials prepare for worst-case scenarios."