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On Monday, election officials in Georgia, arguably the epicenter of Donald Trump’s lawless quest to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, unveiled a system intended to protect poll workers in the upcoming midterms.
The announcement aligned with the start of early voting in Georgia, a state with consequential seats in Congress, and a governorship, up for grabs. The fact that such a protocol is even necessary supports international claims that the United States is a democracy in decline — or, at least, a democracy being threatened.
Here’s how Georgia’s poll worker system will operate, according to NBC News:
The alert system, which was activated Monday, the first day of early voting in the state, will allow poll managers in every precinct to text a special five-digit number to report any threats or concerning activities at their polling locations.
The information will then be sent to county election offices and the secretary of state’s Elections Division during the early voting period and to the secretary of state’s “war room” — a command center where law enforcement and other officials gather — that will be set up on Election Day.
After the 2020 presidential election, Trump and several people involved in his losing campaign baselessly maligned Georgia poll workers as pro-Biden fraudsters, effectively inspiring a pro-Trump lynch mob to go after the poll workers. Of course, Trump himself tried to pressure Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, into “finding” just enough votes to declare Trump the winner in Georgia.
Raffensperger has said he and his family received death threats for his refusal to go along with the plot, which goes to show the precarious position that many election workers — who don’t have nearly as high a profile — may understandably feel they’re in.
Gabriel Sterling, a top Republican election official in Georgia who was targeted with Trump’s baseless lies about the 2020 election, told NBC News that election officials are trying to strike a balance with the text alert system: not stoking panic that might deter people from voting, but encouraging people to be aware of violent actors trying to stop them from voting.
“You’ve got to be aware of it, but you can’t overprepare for it, because at that point, you’re causing people to be scared and frightened,” he said.
I don’t think it’s possible to overprepare for an assault on Georgia’s electoral process, given what we saw in 2020 and the antidemocratic rhetoric we’ve heard from Republicans since then. But I’m glad to see this alert system put in place.
Republicans desperately want to retake the House and the Senate, and they’ll likely need to win races in Georgia to do it. We’ve seen that desperation lead to violence, and we shouldn’t take any chances this time around.