US election: officials are issued with panic buttons as attacks on ballot boxes continue

The 2024 US presidential election is proving to be one of the most violent in recent history. It has already been marked by two assassination attempts on the former president and Republican candidate, Donald Trump.

The Trump campaign has repeatedly claimed that rhetoric from Kamala Harris prompted the assassination attempts earlier this year, although there is no evidence to support this. But Trump has also ratcheted up the atmosphere with his rhetoric naming the Democrats as “enemies from within”.

Warnings about what might happen on election day are increasingly being made public. In the past few days, US intelligence experts have warned of extremists targeting election officials and seeking to disrupt the vote.

Across the country, there have been a number of reports of violence against officials managing the election, and against voting equipment. Such incidents are prompting worries about voters being scared to go to cast their ballot, and heightening fears of post-election violence.

In Arizona, one of the key swing states in this year’s election, the Democratic party was forced to close its office in Phoenix after it had been shot at three times during September and October. A 60-year-old man, Jeffrey Michael Kelly, was arrested and charged with terrorism-related offences after allegedly having more than 120 guns and more than 250,000 rounds of ammunition in his home.

Last week, Nicholas Farley, 30, was arrested in Florida for shouting antisemitic and racial slurs at a woman who was campaigning outside an early voting site in Loxahatchee in Palm Beach County. Farley faces up to ten years in prison if found guilty on charges of voter intimidation and election interference.

There have also been incidents of ballot boxes being deliberately destroyed or damaged. In Portland, Oregon, ballot boxes were the targets of arson, according to reports. Hundreds more ballots were damaged in another arson case in Washington state.

In both cases, it has been reported that devices used to start the fires had “Free Gaza” written on them, and that the device in Washington also had “Free Palestine” on it. According to reports, police are trying to determine whether the perpetrator was a pro-Palestinian activist, or someone trying to raise tension in what is already a heated political campaign.

Election staff fearful

While most ballots will be cast peacefully, officials who experienced threats and violence in 2020 and 2022 have taken steps to ensure their own safety. This includes performing drills with local law enforcement and liaising with the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, experts in law enforcement and employee protection.

In Georgia, another swing state, election workers have been issued with emergency panic buttons because of safety worries there. Since 2020, 17 states have increased protection for polling station workers and other election officials.

In his testimony to the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration in March, Isaac Cramer, executive director of South Carolina’s Charleston County board of voter registration and elections, said the nation’s “polling places have become battlegrounds for disruptive elements seeking to undermine the electoral process”.

Read more: Political sectarianism is fracturing America

Cramer added that in the June 2022 primaries in South Carolina, poll managers were harassed and accused of breaking the law by a local group of individuals. He cited social media posts by the same group that labelled “good people who were simply carrying out their civic duty to help our democracy function as ‘enemies’”.

Some social media users were discussing how to destroy ballot boxes and encouraging sabotage, according to a document from the Department of Homeland Security, obtained by the non-partisan group Property of the People. It claimed that “election infrastructure remains an attractive target for some domestic violent extremists”, particularly those “with election-related grievances who seek to disrupt the democratic process and election operations”.

Other potential targets included party candidates, elected officials, election workers in states, members of the media reporting on the election, and judges involved in cases connected to the election.

Ninety-two percent of election officials state they have taken more steps to ensure not only staff security but the integrity of the impending election than they had done in the past, according to a Brennan Center for Justice survey.

Post-election violence?

Concerns about election-related violence will not end on November 5. Many voters in swing states claim they are concerned about violence after the election too.

Around 57% of voters said they were concerned that Trump supporters might turn to violence if he loses the election, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll conducted in the first half of October. And in a recent Times YouGov poll, 27% of the American adults surveyed believed violence was very or somewhat likely after the polls close. Around 12% claimed to know someone who might take up arms if they felt that Trump had been “cheated” of victory, while 5% said they knew someone who would do the same if Harris claimed a corrupt election.

If what little trust in the US’s political institutions is to remain, a peaceful transfer of presidential power is essential – to begin the process of national healing after the last near-decade of spiteful and vindictive politicking. The upswing of violent attacks in the weeks before the election suggests this may not be easy to achieve.

Dafydd Townley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.