'They are purposeful and deliberate': Election experts alarmed after MAGA attacks take a darker turn

Wealthy Republican donor Robert Beadles offered two options to county commissioners when falsely accusing Nevada's Washoe County registrar of voters of counting fraudulent votes: "either fire her or lock her up."

Following the meeting, County Registrar Deanna Spikula's office was inundated with threats and harassing calls from people convinced she was part of an effort to rig the 2020 election against former President Donald Trump, according to an investigation by Reuters.

Fearing for her family's safety, Spikula submitted her resignation a few months later.

Her story highlights the nationwide efforts by Trump allies to replace county government leaders with election conspiracy theorists — one of a number of different approaches that right-wing activists have used since the 2020 presidential election to transform how U.S. elections are run.

From attempting to eliminate voting machines and pushing to hand-count ballots to attacking election administrators, Trump allies are stoking fear about the upcoming midterm elections. Some, like Beadles, aren't only pushing false conspiracy theories — they are also funding organized campaigns. The wealthy activist has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to back Nevada Republicans who promoted unfounded claims of election fraud.

However, these efforts should not deter voters from showing up to the polls on Election Day, said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation.

"The threats are real, but the resilience has also been building among the election community now for well over a year… There has been a lot of work done on the ground to help people, who are the frontline workers of democracy be prepared for whatever comes next," Alexander said.

The California Voter Foundation has been helping election officials prepare for potential conflicts on voting sites. The non-profit held an online briefing with law enforcement to provide de-escalation tips to help election officials feel safe and released a resource guide to address any threats and risks election workers encounter.

Alexander said while the attacks on election workers have been worrying, people have inspired her by stepping up to address these rising threats.

Campaigns like "Election Hero Day," which recognizes the work of election administration teams and poll workers on Nov. 7, are helping workers and volunteers feel more appreciated.

The Vet the Vote campaign has recruited over 60,000 veterans and military family members to work at polls in the 2022 midterms and other future elections.

But in some places, these efforts may not be enough.

"The folks, who are trying to intimidate election workers are not confused folks, who are having a moment in a polling place… That's not what we're encountering. Now, this is a completely different kind of individual. They are purposeful and they are deliberate. They want to cause problems, they want to disrupt," said Dana DeBeauvoir, who serves on the Board of Directors for the OSET Institute – a nonpartisan nonprofit devoted to election security and election integrity.

DeBeauvoir, the former elected county clerk for Travis County, Texas for 36 years, had a similar experience with a disrupter in 2020. A woman started banging on the doors and windows in the middle of a counting station, yelling that the election was being stolen. This disrupted the workers and slowed down their process, she recalled.

"It cost several hours of processing time because people couldn't think straight and they didn't want to make a mistake. And so she was successful at her disruption until finally, her fellow poll watchers, who were just completely offended by her behavior, called the police on her and a sheriff's deputy showed up," DeBeauvoir said.

Poll watchers are generally appointed and sponsored by individual campaigns, she added. If they misbehave, election administrators are advised to call their sponsor and ask them to crack down on their behavior.

"Some of these right-wing candidates like that disruption, but often that's the best way to put a stop to it," DeBeauvoir said.

Operatives like Republican lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who tried to build the case that the 2020 election was marred by fraud, are trying to recruit such election conspiracists as poll watchers. Mitchell's trainings often promote aggressive methods that focus on surveillance and can create pressure on local officials, The New York Times reported.

Working with a well-funded network of organizations on the right, including the Republican National Committee, Mitchell is creating "a volunteer army of citizens" to stake out election offices and work at polling places, according to The Times.

"People who do elections tend to do it for reasons that are heartfelt and because they love democracy," DeBeauvoir said. "When you're operating from the heart, it is easier to hurt that kind of person. It's easier to get to them emotionally."

While some threats to election workers may not result in violence, by instilling "fear in their hearts," the "damage is already done," she added.

A survey conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice in 2021 found that one in three election officials feel unsafe because of their job, and one in six have received threats due to their job. The vast majority—more than 80 percent—of these officials are women.

Racism, misogyny and other forms of intolerance play a role in election workers being targeted, Alexander said.

In Detroit, Black women make up far more than half of the frontline election workers, according to city officials, the Detroit News reported. In 2020, election workers were overwhelmed by a crowd of Trump supporters chanting "Stop the Count!" from outside the TCF Center in Detroit as they were counting absentee ballots, Ada Nicole Smith, an election worker, told Detroit News.

Even as disruptions and threats have existed in the past, "what is different and distinct now is the frequency, the severity, and the scale," said Tammy Patrick, a former federal compliance officer in the Maricopa County Elections Department.

These attacks are forcing public servants to leave their jobs.

"You have that loss of institutional knowledge because many of these individuals have served for a long time, but then the fear is the filling of that vacancy with someone who is not an election professional and perhaps has ulterior motives," Patrick said.

Election conspiracist Mark Kampf recently replaced a longtime county clerk in Nye County after the county commission voted unanimously to recommend hand-counting ballots, the AP reported. Kampf strongly advocated replacing voting machines with a hand-count of ballots and remains a close ally of Jim Marchant – the Republican secretary of state nominee in Nevada, who leads a coalition that's working to recruit election deniers to oversee elections.

Voting experts are concerned that installing election deniers in roles that allow them to control election procedures could undermine the safeguards that were so important in the last presidential election, Patrick said.

"So the reason 2020 was so safe and secure is that all throughout the system, you have these checks and balances," Patrick added. "The challenge we face is if moving forward, those checks and balances are removed from the system by filling those roles with individuals that don't believe in free and fair elections."

But these efforts are not necessarily taking place everywhere and shouldn't discourage voters from participating, she stressed.

"It's so critical that we have participation in this moment because our country is truly at a crossroads," Patrick said. "We can only move in the direction that the electorate says and if the electorate stays home, those who show up are going to decide the direction of our country."