More than one in five local election officials will be working their first presidential election in 2024, according to a new poll out Tuesday – a sign of the continued strain on election workers who faced waves of threat and harassment after the 2020 election.
The rate of turnover among local election officials equals about one to two officials leaving their job every day since the 2020 election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s Law School.
“There’s a lot of institutional knowledge that is lost,” said Lawrence Norden, senior director of the Elections & Government program at the Brennan Center.
Of the officials included in the poll, 30% said they have been abused, harassed, or threatened because of their job, while 73% said the federal government should be doing more to support them.
Norden said the awareness of resources available for protecting workers and voters, especially federal resources for physical and cyber security, is lower among the newer officials. He recommended a coordinated campaign at the federal level to ensure election officials are aware of federal resources and funding available to them, as well as a bigger investment of money and resources in all levels of government so officials are able to protect workers, voters and election infrastructure.
“It’s extremely important to be doing outreach to those officials at the federal and state level to make them aware of resources that are available to them,” he said.
More than half of officials – 56% – said they are worried about political leaders engaging in efforts to interfere with how fellow election officials do their jobs in future elections.
“I am worried about the problem of lies that are told about election work and election officials,” Norden said. “And the more that we can do to strengthen them and…
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