US election officials ‘look over shoulders more’ as political violence surges

The second possible assassination attempt on Donald Trump on Sunday is the continuation of the year’s events that has highlighted how much the threat of violence is woven into the fabric of American political leadership. 
 
It is a threat that is even imminent for presidents as young as Trump who has body guards provided by the Secret Service all day all year, to lowly appointed and elected judges and other election commissioners who cannot afford body guards. 
 
There has been tension surrounding the 2024 election for months with violence being an all too familiar theme. Maine Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows lost her home as a target of the swatting after she had disqualified Trump from the presidential election late last year. Supreme court justices in Colorado received death threats after doing the same to their case – their decision was later reversed by the US supreme court – in December. 
 
More than 60 threats targeted at Bragg, his family and the Manhattan DA office have been highlighted this year by the New York Police Department. The same can be said about Judge Juan Merchan, who worked on the above-mentioned case; he also received many threats. 
 
It appears most daunting for local election officials, who have almost no budget and were unknowns before the 2020 election. A similar case in Georgia was seen in a county in the outskirts of Atlanta which recently voted to allocate $50,000 for panic buttons for the election workers and an additional $14,000 to hire a body guard. Other counties have been said to have shown their interest in the panic button. 
 
In June 2016, a poll conducted by the Chicago project on security and threats (Cpost) revealed that 10 percent of that country’s population believes violence is acceptable to stop trump from being president. The same survey, further identified 6. A survey showed that 8 % American adults endorsed the use of violence in restoring Trump to presidency. Until January the survey showed that there was more support for violence in support of Trump. 
 
“Instead of waiting for one side to escalate the violence and the other side to justify it, all political leaders and presidential candidates should denounce political violence as they commit it regardless of being from the left or the right,”, said Robert Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago and leader of Cpost in an email on Sunday 29th November 2020. 
 
The then Vice President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the Vice President has denounced both attacks on Trump’s life. But Trump who has long used the specter of violence considering that he encouraged his supporters to physically assault protesters during his 2016 campaign, has accused Harris. 
 
Despite this, due to the existence of the so-called Communist Left Rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and things are only going to worsen,” he wrote in a post on the truth social. Another online Trump supporter Elon Musk asked ‘Where is the assassination attempt on Biden or Harris?’ before deleting it and then adding ‘joke’. 
 
Although that response comes after a threat on his own life, it also comes after several years of fueling false election theft narratives that endanger others. 
 
A January survey by the Brennan Centre of more than 900 election officials noted that 40 percent of them have increased the security of election premises or polling stations. Another 37 percent also stated they experienced harassment, abuse or threats while 72 percent of those polled stated threats have risen since 2020 in their view. 
 
Claire Woodall-Vogg, the executive director of the Milwaukee election commission from 2020 to earlier this year, said that the city spent over $100,000 to enhance the physical security of her office. 
 
“You once could just go up to a desk, lean across it, and say ‘hello’ to somebody, and now we have such accidents as shatterproof glass, the use of a panic button, and others,” she noted after leaving her position as a senior adviser at a government watchdog group called Issue One. They recently rolled out a pledge to stand with election officials as they go through threats. 
 
She also said that before the year 2020, there would be people who would be annoyed by elections, but sometimes it was simply their disapproval of the certain procedures, rules or laws. 
 
In a similar manner, it was quite common to have citizens who would be frustrated or angry in most cases with the way in which laws were written but explaining to them, for instance, “I have to ask for your photo ID, it’s under state statute,” she said. “It meant in general you could always defuse that situation. ” 
 
Now she said, “it’s gotten to a point where it’s not law you are disagreeing with, but you are accusing us of not following the law and with no evidence at all, then when evidence is produced you cart it away”. 
 
The justice department also initiated a special unit dedicated to election crimes It has however been accused of been sluggish and unassertive in its activities. 
 
Woodall-Vogg, who did not have any type of security detail when she went out in public, said going out was an act of election integrity between going out into the community to try and explain to people why her vote mattered and going into a room filled with hostile people who do not believe that the election was real. 
 
The Department of Homeland Security recently offered a site security assessment to Barb Byrum, the county clerk in Ingham county Michigan who supervises the elections in her county. Of what her office was doing to step up on security, she did not want to discuss further. 
 
“Next I made sure there was some window shades in my office and so that people across the street cannot see me sitting at the desk,” she said. “People have their guard up a little more ever since ERTS was formed. ”