Since 2020, election officials across the country have been thrust into the middle of election deniers’ campaign to undermine faith in American democracy. Scapegoated for outcomes that some politicians and voters don’t like, election officials have faced increasingly violent rhetoric and attempts to criminalize their work that are fueled by disinformation and conspiracy theories.
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Perhaps the most infamous example is [the U.S. state of] Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who received hundreds of threats overnight after former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani falsely accused them of committing fraud in the 2020 election. But other examples abound.
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state and local leaders have contributed to this hostile climate. Since 2020, a dozen states have enacted new criminal laws with harsh penalties targeting everything from minor mistakes to legitimate efforts to help voters exercise their constitutional rights
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All of this has contributed to unprecedented attrition among election officials, which created an opening for election deniers like Steve Bannon to try to orchestrate a hostile takeover of our elections.
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The risk of a politicized Department of Justice targeting election officials is very real. A former department official, Jeffrey Clark, played a prominent role in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election, including through his White House–backed efforts to pressure the DOJ into endorsing bogus allegations of widespread fraud. Officials also floated the idea of seizing voting equipment, and former President Trump was infamously recorded threatening Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, with prosecution.
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Facing unprecedented challenges from election deniers and foreign interference, election officials need more support than ever to carry out the complex, technical work of administering elections. Yet Project 2025, if enacted, would strip away crucial federal aid and escalate the politicized attacks they are already suffering — with potentially dire consequences for our elections.
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