1 in 5 elections officials likely to quit as threats mount

Local elections officials say they are increasingly concerned about their safety, and a mounting number say they are very likely to leave their jobs in the coming years after unprecedented threats and attacks from partisans who question election results.

In a new survey conducted for the Brennan Center for Justice, 1 in 5 local election officials say they are likely to leave their jobs before the 2024 presidential election.

Three-quarters say they feel that threats against elections officials have increased in recent years, and more than half, 54 percent, say they are very or somewhat concerned about the safety of their colleagues.

About a third of the elections officials surveyed by the Benenson Strategy Group, a Democratic pollster that conducted the poll for the Brennan Center, said they knew of at least one colleague who had left public service partly or entirely because of fear for their safety, increased threats or intimidation.

“These poll results should raise the alarm for anyone who cares about professional, apolitical election administration, especially because they’re coming from the people who know it best,” Brennan Center analysts wrote. “All levels of government must act to protect our elections and the people who run them.”

Election officials around the country received an unprecedented number of threats from supporters of former President Trump after he sought scapegoats to explain away his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. The threats have targeted both elected officials in charge of overseeing elections and the lower level employees in county and state elections offices.

The Justice Department last year created a special task force to combat threats against election workers, led by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. In a statement announcing the task force, Monaco called threats against those workers “a threat to democracy.”

The proliferation of election-related conspiracy theories spread via social media has helped fuel those threats, and they worry elections officials who are concerned about the role misinformation plays in Americans’ confidence in election results.

Three in 4 elections officials said social media had made their jobs more difficult, and 58 percent said the false rumors and threats spread online have made the job more dangerous.

The poll, conducted between Jan. 31 and Feb. 14, surveyed 596 local election officials across the country. About a quarter of those surveyed self-identified as Democrats, while 30 percent said they were Republicans. The overall poll carried a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.