Prepping for the worst: Election workers anticipate threats in US vote

Across the country, in Rochester Hills, Michigan, Tina Barton had her own brush with election-related violence.

For more than three decades, Barton, a Republican, served in government, eventually landing the role of city clerk. She also had other duties, including running elections and keeping voter records.

But over the years, she had seen tensions rise. Al Gore and George W. Bush’s election in 2000, which was decided by a few thousand votes in Florida, showed early signs of conflict.

Barton also noticed election denialism years later, in 2016. After finishing fourth in the presidential race, Green Party candidate Jill Stein at the time advocated for long-shot recounts in three battleground states, including Michigan.

As that effort fizzled, Stein decried, “We do not have a voting system we can trust”.

Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams in Georgia also retaliated following her 2018 gubernatorial defeat to Brian Kemp, accusing Republicans of “rigging” the system to benefit them despite acknowledging that she and other candidates were acting within the laws at the time.

Following the 2020 election, Barton said, those nascent signs of growing scepticism changed.

She told Al Jazeera, “Up until that point, the attack had been more focused on the process, the doubts, and how we conduct elections in our country.” “We really hadn’t had the attention on us individually”.

For Barton, that newfound spotlight on election workers came with threats.

After Trump’s defeat in 2020, much of the scrutiny fell on battleground states that Republicans narrowly lost, including Michigan.

Ronna McDaniel, the head of the Republican National Committee, falsely claimed that 2, 000 votes had been improperly diverted to Democrat Joe Biden.

In reality, Barton and her team had corrected the vote tally to ensure precise results as part of routine election procedures.

However, harm had been caused. A series of inquiries and threats resulted from hearing Barton’s name being fabricated as part of election fraud. One caller even left death threats on her voicemail a few days after the race, citing Trump’s false election claims.

“I did not expect to go to my office and pick up my own phone, my own voicemail, and have someone call me by name and say: ‘ When you least expect it, we will kill you, ‘” Barton said.

Barton, who lost her campaign for city clerk in the same year, has since focused on training other election officials. However, she has a message for powerful political figures.

“When you’re an individual with a platform and who has followers… you have to take responsibility for the words that you’re saying”, Barton said.

Source: Aljazeera