(Reuters) – One in three U.S. election officials feels unsafe on the job and one in six reported being threatened because of their work, according to a survey published Wednesday by New York University’s nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice.
The results reflect a reckoning in the wake of election in which the loser, former Republican President Donald Trump, spent months falsely alleging the contest was “rigged” against him. Those claims sparked threats and actual violence, such as the deadly U.S. Capitol riots on Jan. 6.
A Reuters investigation published on Friday found that election workers and their families continue to face threats and intimidation months after Trump’s loss in November to Democrat Joe Biden. The intimidation has been particularly severe in Georgia, where Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and other Republican election officials refuted Trump’s stolen-election claims.
Election officials’ fears for their safety portend major staffing problems in future votes, the Brennan Center said.
“Large numbers of election officials have resigned in the past year, raising alarm bells. But the wave of departures could soon turn into a tsunami,” said a report produced jointly by the Brennan Center and the Bipartisan Policy Center, a centrist Washington think tank.
