I voted yesterday. It was legitimately busy at the Florence Bain Center but the wait was minimal. I followed my traditional protocol for thanking each poll worker for being there so that I could vote. In turn, most of them thanked me for voting.
What would we do if we didn’t have enough poll workers? How would it impact free and fair elections? Some areas of the country are grappling with this right now. Some of it is likely due to COVID. Older people have traditionally stepped in as poll workers and they have been disproportionately disabled or have even died over the last several years. The pool is smaller.
The other reason that it’s getting harder to find poll workers is the steady wave of threats associated with former President Donald Trump’s incursion into national politics and the rise of the MAGA movement.
Police and poll workers train for possible election threats, Katja Ridderbusch, NPR
I haven’t heard of any of that kind of behavior happening here in Howard County, but, I think it’s important to put ourselves in the shoes of those who have/are experiencing it.
Would you be brave enough to be a poll worker if it could very well mean threats and intimidation? Even death threats?
Chris Harvey was Georgia’s elections director from 2015 to 2021.
A former street cop, homicide detective and DA’s investigator, Harvey got his own taste of the hate and violence that followed the 2020 elections. One day before the Senate runoff election that following January, Harvey learned that a picture of his face in a bullseye, his address and other personal data were posted on the darknet. An email advised him to say farewell to his family.
A threat of harm to an elections director does not impact that one person alone. It raises the specter of fear for those currently involved in the election process or anyone even considering it. The ripples of intimidation spread. It’s not enough to scare people in the here and now. One must invest in scaring people in advance that something bad - - that hasn’t happened yet - - could happen to them if they participate in working at the polls.
I don’t blame folks who recoil from putting themselves directly in harm’s way. I am also grateful to everyone who chooses to move forward anyway and for those who are working to keep them safe. Democracy depends on them.
The plans of those who, in their quest for power, see Democracy as something to be “gotten around” depend on disabling the credibility of the entire election process. They see anyone who is not 100 per cent on their side as a threat to be neutralized.
I don’t know about you, but I was raised to believe that things like this couldn’t happen in this country. Of course I never learned anything about the Jim Crow South until I was an adult so my upbringing wasn’t exactly comprehensive. The truth is it can happen if we let it.
Here in Howard County we are fortunate in so many ways and there is a tendency to shy away from discussing ugly things because “they couldn’t happen here.” To feel safe and confident in one’s community is a very good thing. To grow complacent is not. That is when the very things we don’t want come creeping in and set up housekeeping.
Our belief that “it couldn’t happen here” gives them plenty of time to sink down roots.
This last week the owners of two well-known newspapers prevented their editorial boards from publishing endorsements in the Presidential race. The writers who make up the editorial boards are journalists. The owners are billionaires. It was, presumably, the fear of those billionaires that caused them to keep the journalists from doing their jobs.
To be blunt: they feared harm, probably financial, from one candidate should the paper’s endorsement be for the other candidate.
And that is how fear succeeds.
The ripples of intimidation spread. It’s not enough to scare people in the here and now. One must invest in scaring people in advance that something bad that hasn’t happened yet could happen to them.
What does it mean to be braver than a billionaire? Start with being brave enough to be a poll worker. Or a journalist who stands by their work.
And, most of all, do not let anything keep you from voting. Right now, in Howard County, you can cast your vote without hardship or fear of threats and intimidation. Let’s keep it that way.
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