Drones, snipers, razor wire, sniffer canines, physique armor, bulletproof glass, and 24-hour armed safety.
This isn’t a listing of protections in place for a go to by the president of the US nor the contents of a cargo to frontline troops preventing in Ukraine. It is a listing of the safety measures election officers in counties throughout the US have needed to implement forward of Tuesday’s vote because of the unprecedented threats they’ve confronted lately.
Officers are setting up the everyday closing measures to make sure the graceful operation of an election, however past checking that they’ve sufficient ballots and that machines are working correctly, officers at the moment are confronted with having to watch for threats and ensure they’ve performed all the pieces they’ll to guard themselves and their employees.
“Given the present political atmosphere, the likelihood that an occasion could happen has elevated, and our election professionals have responded in type,” says Tammy Patrick, a former election official in Arizona’s Maricopa County who’s now a senior adviser on the nonprofit Bolstering Elections Initiative. “Efforts specializing in the bodily safety of the voters, election employees, and employees by placing in bulletproof glass, panic buttons, razor wire, and fencing are pretty widespread, as is the set up of surveillance cameras and techniques, cyber protections, and coaching on de-escalation strategies and response drills.”
Nowhere within the US is the militarization of the election course of extra evident than in Maricopa County.
The fourth largest county within the nation, Maricopa turned floor zero for election denial conspiracists lately, after GOP lawmakers sanctioned a bogus recount in 2021, run by the Florida firm Cyber Ninjas.
Because of this, the county has for years been placing elevated safety measures in place. “We’re a fortress now,” Stephen Richer, the Maricopa County Recorder, instructed WIRED again in February, outlining how he needed to navigate safety fencing, steel detectors, and safety checks with the intention to get into his workplace.
Because the 2024 election approaches, the measures Maricopa officers are setting up have been ratcheted up considerably.
Officers have added a second layer of safety fencing to guard election places of work, in addition to concrete k-rails, which suggests election employees will likely be bused in from offsite areas as a result of decreased parking areas. On the nation’s tabulation heart, each door will likely be fitted with steel detectors, floodlights will likely be put in, and on election day the middle will likely be protected by a hoop of snipers deployed on roofs across the constructing, election officers instructed NBC.