Election workers 'scared to death' of threats from 'volatile' conspiracy theorists in 2024

Election workers across multiple states are bracing for an onslaught of attacks and threats from conspiracy-addled election deniers ahead of this fall's presidential election.

According to a report in Politico, poll workers are already preparing an information campaign to educate the masses on the vote-counting process and making attempts to elevate transparency, as a means of heading off potential threats from conspiracy theorists. At the recent annual gathering of poll workers organized by the US Election Assistance Commission, many election workers — who are tasked with handling the mundane mechanics of elections like checking in voters and processing mail ballots — are growing increasingly wary of threats from voters convinced that their votes are somehow being stolen.

"I’m scared to death," Leon County, Florida supervisor of elections Mark Earley told Politico.

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Oconomowoc, Wisconsin city clerk Diane Coenen echoed that sentiment, telling the publication that conspiracy theories are "getting more and more volatile." In 2022, a study by the Brennan Center for Justice found that roughly one in six election workers had experienced threats due to their job, and that threats have been on the rise since former President Donald Trump began touting unfounded conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

While the poll workers Politico interviewed refrained from assigning blame to either political party for the threats they've experienced, stressing the non-partisan requirements of the job, the vast bulk of skepticism about how elections are conducted comes from Republican voters. The outlet cited a Washington Post poll released ahead of the third anniversary of the January 6 insurrection that found less than a third of GOP voters believe President Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 election.

Despite poll workers' efforts to be transparent with voters on how elections are conducted and ballots are tallied, many believe there's no amount of effort that would be successful in convincing the most hardline conspiracy theorists.

"It doesn’t matter what you do, what we say or how much we educate the skeptics," Beaufort County, North Carolina director of elections Kellie Harris Hopkins told Politico.

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