Election officials continue to face threats, harassment ahead of November

(NEW YORK) — In early July, a man wearing a gator face mask, sunglasses, and camera equipment attached to a vest walked into the elections building in King County, Washington, and began to take videos and photos of the employees and their surroundings.

The man, according to a video obtained by ABC News, approached a counter and began harassing the election workers as he recorded them with his equipment.

After he left, the man posted a video of the interaction on YouTube and published some of the staff’s names, emails, and phone numbers, which officials said resulted in “dozens of calls and emails” to election workers.

The incident, which left King County employees feeling uneasy, is an example of the ongoing harassment and threats election workers are facing as they prepare for November’s election.

Experts and election workers say the threats began after baseless claims of election fraud proliferated following the 2020 election, and they have not slowed down. And with the potential misuse of artificial intelligence and the threat of deadly opioids being mailed to election offices, election workers ABC News spoke with said they are feeling even more unnerved.

The concerns from election workers come months after former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss won a $148 million judgment after a judge found former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani guilty of defaming them. In an interview with ABC News’ Terry Moran in 2022, the mother and daughter described how threats of violence, both online and in person, temporarily drove Freeman from her home and drove them both from their work as election officers.

“Election workers are still dealing with a lot of lies that are being told about the elections, and are in many ways bearing the kind of the consequences of those lies with harassment, abuse and sometimes threats,” said Lawrence Norden, senior director of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a bipartisan public policy think tank.

Stocking up on Narcan

Last August, when King County received an envelope with a suspicious substance in the mail, it also came with an unsettling message: “Enjoy some complimentary WHITE POWDER! Not saying what it is but I HIGHLY RECOMMEND ASKING AROUND FOR A NARCAN!”

“There must be: NO MORE ELECTIONS!” the letter said.

After law enforcement confirmed the envelope contained traces of fentanyl, election officials in the county implemented robust safety protocols and stocked up on Narcan — a drug that’s sprayed directly into the nostrils of someone experiencing an overdose by touching or inhaling an opioid, which blocks the effects of opioids and can quickly restore breathing.

Two months later, the county was targeted again with another letter in an envelope that was also laced with the deadly opioid.

“It was terrifying,” said Julie Wise, the director of elections for King County.

After election offices in four other states received envelopes with fentanyl and other dangerous substances last year, election workers added Narcan to the safety measures they’re implementing heading into the election.

In Washoe County, Nevada, interim registrar of voters Cari Anne Burgess told ABC News the county has 35 kits of Narcan.

“We absolutely have our Narcan kits,” Burgess said. “We’ve all been trained on it and we’ve also been trained on ‘Stop the Bleed.'”

“Fentanyl is of big concern these days,” said Josh Zygielbaum, the clerk and recorder for Adams County, Colorado. “We now have Narcan everywhere, and have changed our mail-opening processes due to some concerns that we could be a target for potential biological or chemical threat.”

Zygielbaum said that since the 2020 election, he has worn a bulletproof vest to work every day — an extreme measure he felt he had to take to feel safe.

“It’s sad, but I love what I do,” Zygielbaum said. “Without having safe and secure elections, we don’t have a democracy. And so it really is the front line of the fight to preserve democracy.”

Fighting the threat of AI

While election officials work to combat physical threats, experts say artificial intelligence could potentially pose an even greater danger to the electoral process.

In January, AI-generated robocalls that appeared to impersonate the voice of President Joe Biden targeted voters in New Hampshire to discourage them from voting in the primary.

“The threat from AI is potentially a change in the degree of what [election workers] have seen before,” Norden from the Brennan Center told ABC News.

Zygielbaum, who said he is increasingly concerned about AI, said his county has been working with local schools that have STEM programs to learn more about the technology and how to make voters more aware of its dangers.

In King County, Wise told ABC News that AI has been a boon to the county’s election operation — but she’s still concerned about its misuse.

“AI has allowed us to save at least $100,000 in taxpayer dollars to use towards translation services,” Wise said. “So there’s certainly pros and cons to this technology and it’s definitely been a big conversation in the election community nationwide.”

At the same time, Wise, said, “We’re poised really well to react to any mis- or disinformation that can result from AI.”

Wise and other officials told ABC News that the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is working with election workers across the country to teach them about AI and how to identify potential threats and disinformation created with the technology.

According to a report from the Brennan Center, AI has the potential to threaten election security not only by more effectively spreading disinformation, but also by more easily exploiting cyber vulnerabilities in election systems.

“The misinformation, the threats, the attempts to intimidate election officials — that all existed before,” said Norden. “It’s just that now, AI makes it easier to do at a larger scale and in a more sophisticated way.”

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