“A common refrain I hear from my members is that nobody is going to take this seriously until something bad happens, and we are all braced for the worst,” Amy Cohen, the executive director of the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED), will tell the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to a copy of her prepared testimony obtained by CNN.
Some senior election officials have struggled to get security details from state police, Cohen will testify, in an environment that has only grown more tense amid false conspiracy theories about fraud in the 2020 presidential election. More broadly, election officials lack a clear definition of what constitutes a threat or harassment at the federal level, according to Cohen’s written remarks.
CNN has requested comment from the FBI and the Justice Department, which last year set up a task force for investigating threats of violence and intimidation to election workers.
More than half of the potentially criminal threats were in battleground states where the 2020 results were challenged, such as Arizona, Georgia, Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Wisconsin, according to the Justice Department.
Election officials have more on their plate than ever in trying to tamp down disinformation about the voting process while keeping an eye on foreign hacking threats and threats of violence.
As a result of the threats and harassment to election officials, “NASED has heard from state election offices in which every employee now has a concealed carry license and actively carries a weapon,” Cohen’s testimony says.
“[W]e have heard from state election offices that have seen long-time employees abruptly give notice en masse with no jobs lined up, citing safety concerns; and we have heard from states that have lost 25 to 30 percent of their local election officials because those public servants no longer want to work in this environment,” Cohen will testify.
Federal officials have looked to strengthen physical and cybersecurity support for election administrators.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has 127 physical security specialists across the country who can assess election facilities for safety, and the agency plans to hire 15 more by the end of the year.
Yet funding and other resources are a long-term challenge for security of and administration of elections, according to experts.
The Justice Department clarified in January that a criminal justice grants program that gives states millions of dollars each year can be used to protect against physical threats against election workers.
A Justice Department spokesperson told CNN in June that the department division overseeing the grants had yet to report any use of funds to protect against threats of violence to election workers. CNN has requested an update to that data.
