Most Election Workers Are Women & Conspiracy Theories Are Endangering Their Lives

“Sometimes I’m just like, when did this happen?" one female election worker told Jezebel. "We’re on this slippery slope where not only are people becoming afraid to vote, but afraid to help people vote.”

By Kylie Cheung  |  November 4, 2024 | 1:36pm
Photo: Getty Images
Most Election Workers Are Women & Conspiracy Theories Are Endangering Their Lives

As chairwoman of the Philadelphia City Commissioners, Lisa Deeley runs a bipartisan board of election workers who help facilitate free and fair elections in the city—which happens to sit in a swing state that could decide the outcome of Tuesday’s election. Deeley told Jezebel she follows in the footsteps of her mother, who was also an election worker, and has proudly participated in the democratic process since she turned 18. But everything’s changed since the last presidential election when Donald Trump convinced his base that liberal election workers across the country stole the presidency from him, and that his supporters needed to act to take their country back. Deeley recalls a barrage of harassment and threats directed at the board, which began ramping up security at the time as they watched the national climate heat up and a rash of dangerous confrontations and escalations targeting election workers across the country.

Now, Deeley says, the ballot processing center she oversees “operates in a remote warehouse where we’re contained behind a tall, metal fence, topped with barbed wire, and everyone who enters the campus has to be credentialed, with additional security inside.” All of this is new, implemented by the board in partnership with local law enforcement this election cycle. On Monday, the Guardian reported that election offices across the country have enacted similarly bold safety precautions, from drills for active shooters to bulletproof glass and steel doors, as well as de-escalation training for violent or potentially violent confrontations. Some states, including Washington and Nevada, have activated their national guards to prepare for the threat of violence and chaos.

Across the country, women make up 80% of the election workforce, according to a 2021 study from the Democracy Fund. As these women face greater security risks associated with simply doing their jobs, some see a potential gender-based violence issue arising. In May, the Brennan Center for Justice reported that 38% of election officials reported mistreatment such as threats, harassment, or other verbal abuse as part of the center’s annual poll of election workers; this is an 8% increase from the 2023 survey. The same May report showed that 27% of election workers said they know at least one fellow election worker who’s resigned over safety concerns, marking a 10% increase from 2023. Separately, a poll from 2022 found that 40% of voters worry about violent threats and intimidation at polling sites.

Unsurprisingly, 62% of respondents told the Brennan Center they’re worried about political leaders—like, say, the Republican nominee for president—trying to interfere with how election workers do their jobs. At a rally on October 27, Trump cheekily alluded to a “little secret” between him and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson that will supposedly secure the election for Trump. Legal experts and journalists have since posited that this is a reference to how a Republican House majority could help Trump steal the election, even if he loses. 

Also, in March, Trump referred to the 2024 election as “the final battle” and, back in December, called on his supporters to “guard the vote,” naming cities like Detroit, Pennsylvania, and Atlanta, which have larger populations of Black voters. Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye Moss,” the Georgia election workers who successfully sued Rudy Giuliani for defamation, both testified in court in 2023 about the horrific, racist, sexist threats they received as a result of Giuliani and the Trump campaign’s lies about them.

Deeley told Jezebel that in 2020, at the height of Trump’s election denialism, she received 24-hour police protection. Two officers—a man and a woman—followed her everywhere; the woman officer even accompanied her into public restrooms. Every election worker Deeley knew received some police protection, she said. “Sometimes I’m just like, when did this happen?” Deeley said. “We’re on this slippery slope where not only are people becoming afraid to vote, but afraid to help people vote.”

During the last presidential election, we saw right-wing demonstrators protest and disrupt early voting in Fairfax County in Virginia. In 2022, right-wing groups across Arizona mobilized to monitor ballot drop boxes, with some groups doing so armed and wearing tactical gear. In August, the Washington Post reported that schools across Arizona and Texas are opting to no longer serve as polling places due to safety concerns; several faculty members reported being harassed by voters and protesters who mistook them for election workers.

The Department of Justice launched an Election Threats Task Force, which has since secured convictions against 15 people for similar activities, back in June 2021. Those convicted include a Texas man who threatened to stage “a mass shooting of poll workers and election officials” in precincts that he suspected of liberal voting fraud.

Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state since 2019, told the Guardian she became afraid for her safety when Twitter owner Elon Musk began making false claims about voter fraud in her state at the end of October. Before addressing his lies, she said she contacted law enforcement to ensure her family was safe. Her fear was warranted: In 2020, pro-Trump protesters showed up outside her home on several occasions. Already in Maryland, there’s been one reported case of a poll watcher stalking an election worker at the end of last week during early voting. Election workers and government officials across the country—especially in swing states—are prepared for more of this. Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state recently shared that he wears a bulletproof vest under his clothes. 

Melissa Kono, the election town clerk in Burnside, Wisconsin, told Newsweek last week that she and fellow election workers don’t even know if they can safely call 9-1-1 for help: “Help might not arrive, because law enforcement doesn’t know if it’s a legitimate threat or if somebody has called it in as a hoax.. It’s terrifying to me.” Kono also says that today, part of election workers’ training includes preparation for harassment and intimidation, and how to de-escalate potentially violent situations. Before 2020, standard training entailed teaching poll workers election rules like photo ID requirements.

Tonya Wichman, director of the Defiance County Board of Elections in Ohio, told Jezebel that, last week, one voter “decided it was his right to yell at me and tell me how to do my job that I’ve been doing for years.” Wichman says behavior and distrust from voters like this have been new since 2020.

Wichman also says she knows several election workers off the top of her head who aren’t returning after 2020. In some cases, it’s because the job has “tripled in what it originally was.” Since the last election, poll workers have had to become “cybersecurity experts” and “physical safety experts.” “On top of the normal work, now you have to defend or explain the job you’ve been doing for years, to sometimes threatening people,” she explained. “It’s mentally and physically exhausting at this point.” Voters have questioned Wichman about whether the voting machines are Dominion machines, and have tried to convince her of the Trumpian conspiracy theory that Dominion’s machines change votes for Republicans into votes for Democrats.

In 2022, I reported on the experiences of state secretaries of state in key swing states—Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Colorado—who faced violent threats and harassment for certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election. Just as the overwhelming majority of local election workers are women, all of these secretaries of state were women, including Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who’s served as governor of Arizona since 2023. 

After Hobbs certified the 2020 election, which saw Joe Biden win by 0.3% in Arizona, she told me in 2022, “Far-right trolls threatened my children, they threatened my husband’s job as a therapist at a children’s hospital, they called my office saying that I deserve to die and asked, ‘what is she wearing today? So she’ll be easy to get.’ I don’t think anyone signs up for public service for any of that.” Benson previously told me pro-Trump protesters “were showing up outside my house, demanding that I not certify the election because folks didn’t like the results,” after Biden won by about 3% in the state. Jena Griswold, Colorado’s secretary of state during the 2020 election, said, “As we saw in 2020, Democratic secretaries of state are the last line of defense in protecting democracy—and women are a big part of that.”

Bulletproof glass, bulletproof vests, police escorts, shooting drills, panic buttons, and state national guards on standby—all of these security measures have, almost overnight, become regular features of voting and the democratic process. Wichman is struggling to make sense of it, but regardless, she’s undeterred. “People used to not even realize we existed. Now everybody knows we’re here,” she told Jezebel. Still, “a lot of us”—mostly women—“are standing up and doing it anyway.”

 
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