(TheRedAlertNews.com) – Election offices in numerous states across the nation have started to boost security measures for the 2022 midterm elections set to be held on November 8.
A survey by the Reuters news agency of 30 election offices nationwide has found that 15 have introduced heightened security measures ranging “from installing panic buttons to hiring extra to holding active-shooter and de-escalation training.”
Thus, in Flagstaff, Arizona, voters will see bulletproof glass and have to press a buzzer to enter the election office.
In Jefferson County, Colorado, security guards will be stationed outside the busiest polling centers.
In Tallahassee, Florida, election workers will count ballots in a building whose walls were recently reinforced with Kevlar fiber.
According to a Newsmax report, the heightened security measures have been “spurred by a deluge of threats and intimidating behavior by conspiracy theorists and others upset over former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat.”
The Reuters survey does not demonstrate how widespread the boosted election security measures are nationwide. However, it looked at election offices in battleground states or states where security officials have publicly demanded election security improvements.
Even though election-related violence has been sporadic in the United States since the 1960s, there are real risks today, according to Tammy Patrick, a senior adviser at the Democracy Fund.
The Fund is a nonpartisan group founded by entrepreneur and Democratic donor Pierre Omidyar.
“The likelihood that they could occur has definitely increased, so everyone is taking that to heart,” she stated.
The report noted that elections officials in 12 states have complained bureaucratic hurdles have prevented them from receiving sufficient funds to implement the security measures they had hoped for.
Some of those have already invested money in “moderate security improvements” for election day.
One of those is election clerk Aaron Ammons in Champaign County, Illinois, who would like to install metal detectors at his office because of threatening behavior by visitors, such as filming the space and its staff.
“It makes us feel like we’re targets, or we’re not a priority in the same way our men and women in uniform are. And we’re on the front lines of democracy just like they are,” Ammons complained.
He also told Reuters that he recently noticed a person was filming his home. In August, Ammons testified before the US Congress that before the 2020 election, he and his wife received anonymous threats against their daughter’s life.
Since the 2020 election, the US Department of Justice has investigated over 1,000 suspicious messages to election workers, concluding that over 100 could warrant prosecution.
When voters in Jefferson County, Colorado, cast their ballots in the Nov. 8 midterm election, they will see security guards stationed outside the busiest polling centers. https://t.co/DtWffXCiUS
— Newsmax (@newsmax) October 9, 2022
