Panic buttons, Kevlar vests and bulletproof glass: Election-worker safety gets serious

(This story was updated to add new information.)

BRIGHTON, Colo. ‒ Bulletproof glass. Security cameras. Panic buttons.

As the elected county clerk and recorder in a suburb of Denver, Josh Zygielbaum's days are normally filled with marriages, vehicle licensing and house-sale registrations. But for this former U.S. Marine, security concerns are now a daily consideration in his role as the chief Adams County elections official during the bitterly contested 2024 presidential election.

Someone followed Zygielbaum home during a recent election, prompting the local sheriff to recommend he start wearing body armor. His staff has stashed Narcan around the office in case of a fentanyl attack. And a ballot tainted with white power temporarily derailed counting during one ballot tally.

"Unfortunately, it's become a normal part of our everyday lives," Zygielbaum said.

Zygielbaum’s job used to be considered one of the least controversial cogs in a functional democracy. But as a county clerk – even in an otherwise unremarkable suburban Denver county unlikely to make a difference in November’s presidential contest – he and this nation's other election workers have found themselves facing increasingly volatile attacks.

With two recent attempted assassination attempts on former President Donald Trump , and surveys showing many of Trump's supporters will refuse to accept the election results unless he wins, fears of violence focused on election offices are very real, experts say.

On Friday afternoon, Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said authorities in Nevada intercepted a letter addressed to her containing white power and signed by the "United States Traitor Elimination Army." In a press release posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Henderson was quoted as saying that officials in at least 20 states were targeted with similar mail this week.

"I am grateful for the swift action of postal workers and law enforcement, and the perseverance of election workers who show up and do their jobs every day, despite all the rhetoric and risk," Henderson said. "We love them. We owe them. They are heroes."

"We will not be intimidated," the lieutenant governor added to her post about the release.

Some of the threats have come from disgruntled voters, but others have been traced to foreign countries trying to sow chaos and exploit the resulting divisiveness.

"It's frankly ridiculous because the people who are truly running elections are our neighbors," said Zygielbaum. "You see them at the grocery store, at church or the synagogue or the mosque. You might see them out walking their dogs."

Since the 2020 election, the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force has arrested and prosecuted about a dozen people for threatening election workers. In contrast, experts say actual voter fraud, or instances of people voting improperly, are vanishingly rare.

In a statement, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat who serves as president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, said the threats are part of a "disturbing trend" unfolding as the Nov. 5 election approaches. Simon has previously said that while he supports the right of Americans to ask good-faith questions about how elections are run, some people are being deceived into outright hostility.

"Our democracy has no place for political violence, threats or intimidation of any kind," Simon said in his statement this week.

Elections workers are taking security seriously

Like Zygielbaum, election officials across the country are trying a lot of different things to try to secure themselves, said Tammy Patrick, CEO for programs at the National Association of Election Officials.

"Going into this election, I think our election officials are better prepared than they ever have been,” she said. “The first 16 years of this job, I didn't know a single elections official wearing a Kevlar vest. And now I know many of them."

Other precautions being taken nationally include:

◾ In Nevada's Washoe County, elections officials installed a glass-fronted observation booth so people can watch but not harass election workers counting ballots.

◾ In Arizona's Maricopa County, workers have received "de-escalation" training to help reduce confrontations.

◾ Across Georgia, election workers have been practicing to handle ransomware attacks and "swatting" calls tied to voting.

◾ In Los Angeles County, all election mail is being screened by trained sniffer dogs.

Experts fear critics will seize on any mistake to create chaos

Patrick worries the seriousness of threats against election officials seems to be increasing.

“The challenge is that we don't know what's to come, and how it's going to be used as a bludgeon against the legitimacy of the election," she said.

The goal of bad actors is not just to disrupt and sow division, but to create an environment in which the public feels it can't trust anything it hears, she said.

Patrick is concerned that any errors election workers make will be "blown out of proportion or leveraged to cast doubt on the outcome of the election."

"Any mistake can cause a huge ripple effect, and it doesn't even have to be a mistake,” she added. “If facts don't matter, and the truth doesn't matter, no matter what you do, you can still be targeted for whatever reason."

In Brighton, Zygielbaum, the Adams County clerk, said he's focused on running the best election he and his 13 full-time staff can run.

"I know with 100% confidence that our elections are accurate," he said.

He said they learn from each election and fix whatever vulnerabilities they find. He said he remains frustrated that some voters are being tricked into skepticism or outright election denial by outside influences.

"There are certain people that no matter what you tell them, they are not going to believe the election is accurate, unfortunately. And it didn't used to be this way. People used to trust the system," he said.

"The foundation of our country is our democracy. And if you disrupt our democracy, the United States can no longer stand."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Panic buttons, Kevlar vests and bulletproof glass: Election-worker safety gets serious