The Insecure Election

Election morning dispatch

This is not how it’s supposed to be.

Happy Election Day! Just a quick reminder that we will be providing live election night coverage at Mary Trump Media starting at 6:30 p.m. ET. We’ll see you there!

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On Monday, the day before Election Day, former Barack Obama aide and Pod Save America host Tommy Vietor posted this message on Twitter:

“Maricopa County, AZ is experiencing a serious shortage of poll workers heading into Election Day. If you live in Maricopa, please consider signing up.”

In the wake of the kinds of threats against election workers like those launched against Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss by Rudy Giuliani and other of Donald’s thugs, such shortages have been commonplaces.

The combination of personal attacks and Donald’s incessant voter subversion—his increasingly hysterical and violent claims that the Democrats are trying to steal the election from him; that if (and only if) he wins can his followers accept the validity of the results.

Donald has been attacking the the sanctity of our free and fair elections since February 2016 when he lost the Iowa caucus to Ted Cruz. After the results came in, he actually tweeted this:

Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he illegally stole it. That is why all of the polls were so wrong any [sic] why he got more votes than anticipated. Bad!

So we’ve been dealing with this for a long time. The problem is that as the lies get repeated over time and as more and more Republicans helped Donald spread them, more and more people believe them.

Donald’s running mate, JD Vance continues to promote the Big Lie that Joe Biden didn’t actually win in 2020; Speaker of the House Mike Johnson refuses to answer the question, “Will you certify the results of the 2024 election no matter who wins?” without qualification.

All of this ginned up uncertainty and doubt has made it dangerous for the people who conduct our elections, from secretaries of state to poll workers. 

But we know that this is going to be a secure election, just as 2020 was.

Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), has told multiple news organizations that the U.S. election infrastructure “has never been more secure.” She added:

I understand why some Americans have questions, because they've been subjected for years to a fire hose of disinformation, and it has undermined confidence in the election systems and in our democratic institutions, but I have spent so much time on the ground over the past three plus years with state and local election officials who are on the front lines of running and managing and defending election infrastructure, and I can tell you, I have incredible confidence that our election infrastructure has never been more secure.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that poll workers may not be safe.

The Guardian reported on Monday that many elections offices have had to harden their security measures, in some cases reinforcing their buildings and offices with steel doors and bulletproof glass. Others are practicing active-shooter drills. Maricopa County “has some of the most visible security measures, spurred by near-constant presence of threats.”

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The permanent fence is also surrounded by a temporary chain-link fence then again by concrete barriers. The county sheriff confirmed there would be drones, though it was not yet clear if they would need to use snipers on rooftops.

Across the state, election workers have gone through active-shooter drills and learned to barricade themselves or wield fire hoses to repel armed mobs. At the ready are trauma kits containing tourniquets and bandages designed to pack chest wounds and stanch serious bleeding.

In our nation’s capital, windows are being boarded up and security fences are being erected. 

This is all happening in America for one reason and one reason only: Donald Trump is a deeply damaged man who is so terrified of losing that he is perfectly prepared to incite violence to avoid having to face the results.

There are many reasons this country needs to turn the page on Donald and those who support him, but near the top of the list has to be the extreme national security threat he represents.

This is more of what CISA’s Easterly had to say: 

As a retired Army officer, as a combat veteran who has been in very dangerous places where we've had flak jackets and, you know, we've been behind layers of security, it is disconcerting to me, as an American, to see election offices with bulletproof glass and panic buttons and barbed wire fences. That's not the way it should be in America, and we know that these threats, harassment, bullying, swatting, threats of violence to election officials and their families, election officials of both parties largely stemming from unfounded claims that the 2020 election was rigged.

Donald’s lies have brought us here. If Kamala Harris wins by such a massive margin that questioning the results would be laughing, we can move on.

Let’s do this thing.