Gunshots, threats ... and bureaucracy? The latest menace to the U.S. election
Once-mundane certification procedures now a battleground. The front line: Georgia
Gunshots fired into a Kamala Harris campaign office in Arizona. Repeat assassination plots against Donald Trump.
Suspicious packages to election officials in more than 20 states, containing written threats or white powder.
Election workers are being given gloves to handle mail; their offices are liaising with the FBI, Department of Justice and Homeland Security; staff are being trained in de-escalation.
Welcome to the 2024 U.S. election. As early voting begins, so have threats against the election.
"It's certainly not a pleasant work environment," the executive director of North Carolina's elections board, Karen Bell, told reporters this week.
"[But] we are not going to be intimidated by this." She added a reminder to whoever is sending those packages: the election workers you're threatening might include your former teacher or your neighbour.
The 2020 U.S. election uncorked a threat environment that has not subsided, a new reality unleashed by Donald Trump's effort to overturn the last result.
The Brennan Center think-tank has a list of 14 threats to this year's election, based on actions from the 2020, 2022 and 2024 primary and general-election cycles.
Their list includes tampering with equipment; flooding offices with challenges to voter registrations; threats against election workers, which have prompted scores to resign or take security precautions, like hiding in an undisclosed location; and many, many lawsuits, one of which briefly delayed mail voting this year in North Carolina (it's finally underway).
One threat is growing in public attention: Chaos in the counties. Specifically, the certification process in Georgia has become national news.
'I think people woke up ... in 2020'
It's a remarkable shift for those who have long monitored these once-mundane electoral procedures.
"I've been on this job for 14 years and until 2020 I was never once asked a question about certification. So it's a new topic," said Wendy Underhill, director of elections for the National Council of State Legislatures (NCSL), an advisory body and advocate for state lawmakers.
"I think people woke up to that [new reality] in 2020."
Under pressure from Trump, a tooth-and-nail battle unfolded in 2020, with some counties and states just barely certifying that year's election.
Trump's gambit has drawn criminal charges. He's accused of illegally working to delay the 2020 certification, hoping that Republicans in Congress would declare him the winner.
The tactic persisted beyond 2020.
Dozens of county officials have since refused to certify election results. Two years ago, a pair were charged criminally in a rural area of Arizona.
One of the accused in Arizona admitted her stalling had nothing to do with problems in her county. She was protesting after Democrats did well in the 2022 midterms, and she was unhappy with the way the election was run outside Phoenix.
In New Mexico, another Trump-aligned election-denier explained why he tried blocking 2022 primary results: "It's not based on any facts," he said. He had a gut feeling something was wrong.
These are snapshots from just some of the more than 3,000 counties in the U.S. In Pennsylvania alone, some counties have tried blocking certification of the 2022 primaries, the midterms and the 2024 primaries.
Which brings us to recent events in Georgia.
What's going on in Georgia
A Trump-supporting majority on the state elections board has, over the last two months, passed rules that could delay certification at the county level, which is a necessary precursor to confirming the result statewide.
In August, they created a rule allowing any official, on any elections board, in any of Georgia's 159 counties, to launch their own investigation before certifying the vote.
The genesis of this is a Trump ally's refusal to certify the presidential primaries this year in her Atlanta-area county until she could investigate for fraud.
Then, this month another rule from the state board required every neighbourhood polling station to hand-count ballots to ensure the total number matches that from the electronic counter. The rule doesn't make entirely clear what happens if there's a discrepancy.
The board faces lawsuits from not just Democrats but also Republicans, and a judge is expected to hear the challenges in a few days.
Georgia's secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican best known for resisting pressure from Trump to overturn the 2020 result, called the rules illegal, contrary to state law and a threat to the security of ballots.
County officials say this dual-counting system has been tried before and it's a mess. Some complained at the board's meeting this month that it won't work.
But the board is drawing praise from one notable Republican: Trump. At a campaign rally in August, he personally mentioned three Republican board members by name, inviting the partisan crowd to cheer for one as she stood and waved.
"They're on fire. They're doing a great job," Trump said of the elections board. "All pitbulls."
Meetings have grown contentious at the grassroots level. Georgia's board members take pot shots at each other while seated at their podium.
One accused the media and Democrats of misinforming the public about her intentions. Janice Johnston explained that the new rules aren't as onerous as portrayed; poll workers simply need to count the total ballots, not tally the votes for each party.
Another fumed that she was being defamed in interviews by another board member.
"You are attacking our reputation — our integrity," said Janelle King. "They're calling us MAGA right-wing extremists. They don't even know who we are."
King is a conservative podcast host and former Republican official who questioned the 2020 election result and has appeared at events with Trump, praising his work as president. Johnston, her colleague, was the one waving to the crowd from her front-row seat at Trump's recent rally.
Checks and balances in the system
This bureaucratic melodrama would hardly merit international interest if not for its role in electing a globally powerful office-holder: the U.S. president.
So how likely is it this county-level chaos might stall the election, abetting efforts to toss out votes and let Congress pick the president?
Experts on election processes aren't that worried — for now.
"Is it a risk? Maybe. Is it a big risk? No," said Wendy Underhill of NCSL.
Her sanguinity is supported by a thorough report from the legal group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
It lists multiple potential paths to overcoming a baseless election obstruction, in one swing state after another. For example, states have legal penalties, both criminal and civil, as evidenced by Arizona's criminal charges.
Beyond that, some states' election boards have the power to take over the process. And, finally, the report says, the federal government can step in, under laws on voting rights, civil rights, criminal conspiracy and several sections of the Constitution.
Trey Hood, an elections expert at the University of Georgia, says he can foresee state courts nullifying the Georgia board rules, or suspending them until further review.
As for the substance of the rule changes, Hood called them inexplicable. "Busy work" is how he described them.
Asked what's motivating all these changes, he gives the pro-Trump board members some benefit of the doubt: he doesn't think they're aiming to cheat.
Instead, he points to polls that consistently show a clear majority of Republicans believe the 2020 election was stolen, as Trump keeps telling them. As a result, these officials created, in his view, unnecessary or complicated new guardrails.
"There's a widespread belief [the 2020 election was stolen]," said Hood. "I don't think that's ever going to change, unfortunately."
In an environment like this, certification is just one flavour of trouble. In the 2024 U.S. election, there are about a dozen others.
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