Police and ballot box officials provide training against possible election threats

ATLANTA – Deidre Holden knew the election dynamic had changed when she received an email containing a bomb threat and a string of insults almost four years ago. The elections director for Paulding County, northwest of Atlanta, Georgia, says the voting season used to be busy, fun and mostly uneventful.

“But elections are a different world now,” he says. A world where survival training is part of the planning process.

The email arrived in his inbox a few days before two very intense U.S. Senate runoff elections in January 2021, but it didn’t scare him off. “It made me angry that people were trying to hurt us and the election process,” the 20-year election veteran says as he looks out the window of a government building in small-town Dallas.

The FBI investigated the threat, and this experience also spurred Holden to take action for the future. Like many poll administrators across the country, and especially in key battleground states like Georgia, Holden and his team partnered with law enforcement for joint training sessions.

“I want to be able to deal with any obstacle that comes our way,” he says.

Gaining information about possible threats

Many organizations across the country have made it their mission to help protect election workers, voters, and the election process. Someone Committee on Safe and Secure Elections (CSSE). The national, non-partisan organization offers classes for election workers and police officers to prepare for elections amid violence.

“Our goal is to bring both groups together to learn about each other’s roles, practices and responsibilities,” says Chris Harvey, one of CSSE’s founders.

Harvey served as Georgia’s elections director from 2015 to 2021, a career that spanned some of the most volatile elections in the state’s history.

A former street cop, homicide detective and prosecution investigator, Harvey took his own pleasure in the hatred and violence that followed the 2020 election. The day before the January runoff election, Harvey learned that a photo of his face in a bullseye, his address and other personal data had been posted on the dark web. An email advised him to say goodbye to his family.

The death threat solidified Harvey’s decision to leave office. He returned to his roots and currently serves as deputy executive director of the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council (POST), the state’s certification agency for law enforcement.

The Safe and Secure Elections Committee has trained poll administrators and police officers in nearly 30 states, including Arizona, Michigan and Georgia.

At a recent lecture in the Georgia seaside town of Brunswick, Harvey was joined by Blake Evans, the state’s new elections director and Harvey’s successor at the Georgia Secretary of State.

30 election officials, police officers and sheriff’s deputies gathered in the auditorium of the local public safety emergency building; After a brief introduction, they were divided into groups to play out a variety of scenarios, from mundane to dramatic.

For example, what would they do if a disgruntled voter walked into a polling place, refused to follow the rules and turned his campaign shirt inside out? What if a voter enters a polling place with a gun? (In Georgia, carrying a firearm within 500 feet of a polling place is a misdemeanor, even though Georgia is an open carry state.)

What do election workers do if an angry mob of unlicensed poll watchers gather outside a polling station, shouting about voter fraud and trying to gain access to a closed area inside the polling place? When is it time to call police backup?

“In most cases, the survey administrator will approach people and explain the rules, and most of the time people will eventually comply,” Harvey explains.

Only when people create disruption that could interfere with the election process or harm voters and poll workers, “law enforcement involvement may be necessary,” he says.

Concerns about voter suppression

A question raised in almost every workshop is how to balance the need to protect voters and poll workers with the risk of voter intimidation. This is a sensitive issue because the role of law enforcement during elections has a troubled history, especially in the South.

Voter intimidation, suppression, and violence against Blacks were common from the end of Reconstruction after the Civil War through the Civil Rights era. In many cases, law enforcement actively participated in injustices.

Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta, says election officials and law enforcement “want to be very careful about replicating these painful images” as they debate how to protect polling places and poll workers in 2024.

Armed police officers at polling places can trigger traumatic memories, especially for older African Americans, and prevent some from voting altogether.

Christopher Bruce, policy director ACLU of GeorgiaHe thinks it’s important to clearly define the threat before sending the police. He says law enforcement should take a supporting role in securing polling places, not “taking over a place.”

Education, he says, must be “sensitive to racial dynamics and emphasize the need to build trust in marginalized communities.”

For Harvey, this is a valid concern. He says the solutions may be different for each society. One option would be to distribute plainclothes police around polling places.

While it is illegal to deploy federal troops or armed federal law enforcement to any polling place, state and local laws regarding policing at polling places vary widely among the 50 states.

The key, Harvey says, is for law enforcement and election officials to work together in a way that is “practical, smart and non-oppressive.” “We have no intention of turning a polling place into a militarized site.”

Preparation for emergencies

The workshop also addresses other public safety emergencies such as fires, bomb threats and suspicious substances.

Establishing relationships upfront is critical, says Harvey.

“You never want to receive someone’s business card for the first time in the middle of a crisis. “You don’t want to meet your counterpart at 7.30am on election day and find out there’s a gas mains leak or a bomb threat,” he adds.

As the workshop closes, election workers and law enforcement gather together before heading to their offices and patrol cars.

Staff Sgt. Steve McKinney, a deputy with the Camden County Sheriff’s Office near Brunswick, has been in law enforcement for 16 years and has served in numerous elections.

“Before the workshop, I wasn’t really aware of how hard survey administrators work and how stressful the job is,” he says. He’s committed to focusing even more on the safety of poll workers, “especially as the election gets more heated.”

He also wants to brush up on his knowledge of Georgia election law, “all the rights and laws, because sometimes it can be controversial.”

That’s why the Safe and Secure Election Committee distributes paper booklets small enough to fit in a police officer’s uniform pocket. These booklets include: Basic provisions of the Electoral Code of Georgia.

For example, using violence to threaten or intimidate poll workers and voters is a serious crime. In addition, it is the duty of law enforcement officers to remove obstacles to voting places and maintain order in voting places.

In addition to offering workshops on election security, Georgia this summer became the first state to require an election law course for all new police officers.

“Cops can often solve a traffic accident without consulting the law because they do it all the time and know sections of the law by heart,” says Harvey.

He doesn’t expect police officers to be experts on election law, “but we want officers to know where they can find it and that there are resources they can use to prepare for some of the challenges.”

We do not step back against threats

Since the bomb threat in 2021, Paulding County elections director Deidre Holden has dealt with many difficult voters, some disgruntled, others aggressive.

He said there will be a uniformed sheriff’s deputy at every polling location in Paulding County, which is predominantly white and predominantly conservative.

“I will feel much safer with MPs nearby,” he adds.

Holden also installed security cameras in the lobby and hallways, hardened doors and added panic buttons throughout the office. He and his team attended active shooter classes offered by local police; Here they learned how to use a fire extinguisher as a weapon and how to secure a door with a belt or bag strap.

Unlike many of his colleagues, Holden never considered quitting his job.

“Because I love what I do. And I won’t be bullied; “I won’t be threatened for doing this,” he says, and after a defiant pause, he adds: “I’m ready.”

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