‘THE GREAT RESIGNATION’ — Despite fears of chaos and clashes between protesters and counter-protesters at former President Donald Trump’s two arraignments in recent weeks, both landed with a whimper and no notable incidents. Whether we’ll be so fortunate across the rest of the 2024 cycle — which could feature a bitter rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden, or a trial-of-the-century featuring Trump as a defendant — is still in question. In particular, election administrators are increasingly concerned about acts of violence against poll workers — and they’re trying to do something about it in advance. Their fears are not unfounded: A poll conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice and the political reform group Issue One showed that roughly three in four election officials have reported a spike in threats against election workers since 2020. In response, a group of 24 former and current election officials are urging Congress to adopt $400 million in consistent federal funding to improve the working conditions for poll workers around the country. The threats — largely stemming from people who deny the result of the 2020 presidential election — are already causing poll workers and other election officials to resign in droves, according to Tonya Wichman, the director of the Defiance County Board of Elections in Ohio. “People don’t realize the mental health situation,” Wichman said. “We’ve lost a lot of election officials throughout the country. They’re calling it the ‘Great Resignation.’ People are broken and exhausted.” Credible threats of violence have manifested across the country — and one in five poll workers suggested they’d likely quit before the 2024 presidential election last year — but they appear to be most pronounced in closely contested swing states. Seven battleground states — Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — accounted for nearly 60 percent of all threats of physical violence that election workers reported to a federal task force on election threats. Of the more than 1,000 contacts reported as hostile or harassing by the election officials, approximately 11 percent of those contacts met the threshold for a federal criminal investigation. In one November 2020 incident, a polling station in Philadelphia received a threat from an unknown individual claiming that they were going to “straighten out” the person responsible for counting votes, according to Omar Sabir, vice chair of the Philadelphia City Commissioners, a bipartisan board of elected officials in charge of elections and voter registration for the city. Eventually, two armed men arrived but were intercepted by the police department after the FBI was alerted. Many veteran poll workers, who are often volunteers or paid just a small stipend for their time, and even election officials have decided that the risk of violence or continued harassment is too much to take. In Michigan, over three dozen county clerks have left their positions since November 2020, according to Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum. This has clear consequences for election administrators attempting to run free and fair elections. When veteran officials and poll workers leave their positions, they take with them “decades of institutional knowledge,” Byrum said. In some cases, she says, this has allowed for conspiracy theorists and deniers to fill the positions, making it harder to administer elections and sometimes increasing threats of violence against poll workers. The $400 million that election administrators are requesting from Congress would go towards security measures including training to stop or deal with doxxing, privacy services and home security and federal protections against threats. Currently, election operations are funded at the city and county level, making the funding inconsistent and the task of upping security that much harder. The goal is simple: to have a safe, free and fair election. “I want to make sure that every one of my voters has the chance to make their voice heard,” says Boone County, Mo. Clerk Brianna Lennon. “And that means that we can’t have interference from people that don’t have that in mind. I hope that all levels of government with funding sources that come into elections recognize the importance of investing in our elections. Now.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at ayahmahana@gwmail.gwu.edu or on Twitter at @AyahMahana .
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