(This story has been updated to add new information.)
BRIGHTON, Colorado – Bulletproof glass. Security cameras. Panic buttons.
Josh Zeigelbaum’s days as suburban Denver’s elected county clerk and recorder are typically filled with weddings, car registrations and home sales. But for the former U.S. Marine, safety concerns are now a daily consideration in his role as Adams County’s elections chief amid a hotly contested 2024 presidential election.
During the recent election, Szygielbaum was followed home, leading the local sheriff to advise him to wear a bulletproof vest, his staff hides Narcan around the office in case of a fentanyl attack, and white power-tainted ballots temporarily derailed one vote count.
“Unfortunately, this has become a part of our daily lives,” Sigielbaum said.
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Mr. Szygielbaum’s job was once considered one of the least controversial cogs in a functioning democracy, but as county clerk of a run-of-the-mill suburban Denver county unlikely to have a major impact in November’s presidential election, he and other election officials around the country are facing increasingly fierce attacks.
Experts say fears of violence targeting election offices are very real, given two recent assassination attempts on former President Donald Trump and surveys that suggest many of his supporters will reject the election results unless he wins.
Utah Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson announced Friday afternoon that authorities in Nevada had intercepted a white supremacist letter addressed to her and signed by the “Army for the Pursuit of Traitors.” In a press release posted to X (formerly Twitter), Henderson said officials in at least 20 states had been targeted with similar mail this week.
“I’m grateful for the swift action of our postal workers and police, and for the tenacity of our election workers who come to work every day and do their jobs despite all the rhetoric and the danger,” Henderson said. “We love them. We owe them a debt. They are heroes.”
“We will not be intimidated,” the lieutenant governor added in a post about the release.
Some of the threats have come from disgruntled voters, while others are allegedly coming from foreign countries seeking to sow chaos and exploit the resulting divisions.
“Frankly, this is ridiculous because it’s our neighbors who are really running our elections,” Szygielbaum said. “You see them in the grocery store, you see them in churches, synagogues, mosques. You might even see them walking their dogs.”
Since the 2020 election, the Justice Department’s Election Intimidation Task Force has arrested and charged about a dozen people with threatening election workers.By contrast, experts say cases of actual voter fraud, or voting irregularities, are extremely rare.
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat who serves as chairman of the National Association of Secretaries of State, said in a statement that the threats are part of a “disturbing trend” that is unfolding as the Nov. 5 election draws near. Simon has previously said that while he supports Americans’ right to ask good faith questions about how elections are being run, some people are being misled into open hostility.
“There is no place in our democracy for political violence, intimidation or threats of any kind,” Simon said in a statement this week.
Election workers take security seriously
Tammy Patrick, chief programs officer for the National Association of Election Officials, echoed Szygielbaum and said election officials across the country are trying different things to keep themselves safe.
“I think election officials are coming into this election better prepared than they’ve ever been before,” she said. “In my first 16 years on the job, I didn’t know any election officials who wore Kevlar vests, but now I know a lot of them.”
Other precautionary measures being taken across the country include:
In Washoe County, Nevada, election officials set up glass-walled observation booths so people could watch election workers counting ballots without disrupting them.
In Maricopa County, Arizona, workers are trained in “de-escalation” to reduce conflicts.
◾ Across Georgia, elections staff are training to respond to voting-related ransomware attacks and “swatting” calls.
◾ In Los Angeles County, all election mail is screened by trained sniffer dogs.
Experts worry that critics will use any mistakes to create confusion.
Patrick said he’s concerned that threats against election officials appear to be growing in severity.
“The problem is we don’t know what’s going to happen next and how it’s going to be used as a cudgel against the legitimacy of the election,” she said.
The goal of bad actors is not just to sow confusion and division, she said, but to create an environment where citizens feel they cannot trust anything they hear.
Patrick worries that any mistakes made by election workers “will be exaggerated or used to cast doubt on the outcome of the election.”
“Any mistake can have huge ramifications, and it doesn’t even have to be a mistake,” she added. “If facts don’t matter, if the truth doesn’t matter, then whatever you do, for any reason, you can be targeted.”
In Brighton, Adams County Clerk Sigielbaum said he and his 13 full-time staff are focused on running the best elections they can.
“I am 100% confident that our election was accurate,” he said.
He said he learns from each election and corrects weaknesses he finds, but said he remains frustrated that outside influences have led some voters to doubt or reject the results altogether.
“Unfortunately, there are people who don’t believe elections are accurate no matter what you say. It wasn’t like that in the past. People trusted the system,” he said.
“The foundation of our country is democracy. If we disrupt democracy, America can no longer exist.”