Georgia’s election workers brace for a tense midterm season
With Election Day being weeks away, election officials are preparing for high-stakes midterms, facing concerns that previously sounded outlandish.
In the wake of the 2020 election, false accusations led to death threats and upended the lives of two Fulton County election workers. In 2024, election officials contended with hoax bomb threats.
This year, election officials are again preparing under pressure as President Donald Trump attempts to use the levers of government to reshape American elections and his administration investigates jurisdictions central to his 2020 grievances. Election experts and liberal voting rights groups are warning of everything from disruptions at the polls by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to the possibility that Trump could heed calls from supporters to declare a state of emergency that they say would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.
To counter spreading fear, state and local officials are seeking to bolster confidence in the process weeks before the midterms.
To do that, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger launched an election integrity task force of former elected officials from both parties, county election workers and others.
Among the members are Republicans, such as former U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss and U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson. But it also includes Democrats like former Gov. Roy Barnes and former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.
Counties are hosting voter education events, providing updates about key dates and other information regarding the upcoming midterms online and through media campaigns.
“Our approach is to meet voters where they are and make trusted election information easy to find, understand and act on,” Keisha L. Smith, the DeKalb County director of registration and elections, said in a statement.
They’ve also gamed out the worst-case scenarios through tabletop exercises and are testing voting equipment, which has been the subject of concerns among security advocates over security vulnerabilities and false claims of tainted machines in 2020.
In Irwin County, officials are installing panic buttons in each voting location for poll workers during the midterms.
“These are people we just cannot afford to lose or put at risk even if we haven’t had any significant threats,” said Irwin County Election Supervisor Ethan Compton.
The buttons, he said, send a photo and GPS coordinates to election headquarters, the sheriff’s office and emergency call centers.
“For a small investment, we can give some additional peace of mind to help them be more confident in serving our voters,” Compton said.
Concerns started mounting well before the midterms. In January, FBI agents seized troves of 2020 election records from Fulton County as part of a criminal investigation. During early voting for this year’s party primaries, Fulton County Elections Director Nadine Williams and the county election board ended a pilot program that expanded the number of return locations for absentee ballots.
It wasn’t because it was costly or hard to implement. Instead, Williams cited concerns about the safety of election workers transporting ballots.
“This election doesn’t have that much attention, but we’ve already had people coming out, standing behind their vehicles, taking pictures of the rental car tag, for whatever reason — nobody knows,” Williams said at the time. “And I’m thinking when it gets to be a more popular election, I do not want those couriers to be at risk of people following their vehicles or just causing problems for the sake of 40 or so ballots.”
Officials begin sending mail ballots for the general election on Oct. 5. Early voting starts on Oct. 13. Election Day is on Nov. 3.
But before voting starts, county officials are testing their touchscreens, ballot scanners and check-in tablets as part of their efforts to find and eliminate any issues before voting begins. Critics of the state’s voting technology say such testing is inadequate and fails to stop possible programming errors.
There’s no indication that Georgia’s voting machines have been tampered with during an election. However, programming errors have caused an inaccurate vote count in Georgia. In 2022, a recount overturned the preliminary results in a Democratic primary for a post on the DeKalb County Commission.