Threats to Election Workers Are Focus of New Campaign

American officials are highly concerned about the potential for violence against election workers on and around Nov. 5.

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Early voting in Marion, N.C., last week. After the 2020 election, election workers and their families started seeing threats against them at a much higher rate.

The sheriff of Orange County, Calif., Don Barnes, warned the public that violence and intimidation around the election would not be tolerated.

A retired United States Air Force brigadier general, Marty France, said it was up to Americans to protect election officials and their families from threats of violence.

And the Weld County, Colo., clerk and recorder, Carly Koppes, said members of the public had lost faith in the country’s election officials since 2020, when former President Donald J. Trump ramped up the spreading of baseless assertions about election fraud that continue today.

These messages and others were released on Tuesday, two weeks ahead of Election Day, by the nonpartisan Committee for Safe and Secure Elections in an effort to raise awareness about threats to election workers and to warn of consequences of any violence at the polls.

This group, which helps to support election workers across the country and connect them to law enforcement, and others stepped up their outreach after the 2020 election, when election workers and their families started seeing threats against them at a much higher rate.

On Monday, the Justice Department unsealed charges against a Philadelphia man who officials say threatened to kill a state political party representative who was recruiting official poll watchers. The man tracked down the representative and threatened to “skin you alive.”

American officials are highly concerned about the potential for violence against election workers on and around Nov. 5. Even some of Mr. Trump’s allies have said that is a possibility if the final vote ends up being contested. Recent polling suggests the race between Mr. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is essentially in a dead heat.

Even as Mr. Trump faces two criminal cases over his efforts to overturn his loss to President Biden in the last election, the former president has campaigned on the notion that he is so strongly favored in the divided country that if he loses on Nov. 5, it will be because Democrats rigged the election in their favor. No current polling backs up his claims.

And Mr. Trump has threatened to prosecute election officials involved in “unscrupulous behavior,” repeating claims of corruption and fraud despite there being no evidence of either.

Eileen Sullivan covers breaking news, the Justice Department, the trials against Donald J. Trump and the Biden administration. More about Eileen Sullivan

See more on: 2024 Elections: News, Polls and Analysis, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden