Hyping of threats to election workers could chill protected speech, election watchdogs warn

As the Democrats and their media allies push for election worker protection legislation across the U.S., election integrity watchdogs are warning of the potential chilling effect such laws could have on protected First Amendment speech.

A USA Today story on Wednesday cited surveys from the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice purporting to show that at least one in six election officials "have experienced threats because of their job," while one in five "indicated they were likely to quit ahead of the 2024 presidential election."

Invoking "ongoing fallout from the 2020 presidential contest," the article claims, "The people who volunteer to assist in administering U.S. elections have become more of a target in the years since former President Donald Trump has refused to accept losing the 2020 race."

In response to the purported rise in threats, states are implementing protections for election workers, the outlet reports, citing the Voting Rights Lab. The election law tracker lists California, Colorado, Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon and Washington as having enacted laws last year to protect election officials with harsher criminal penalties for threatening election workers, and identifies several other states in the process of passing similar legislation.

In Florida, Senate Bill 7050 includes a section that would make it a third-degree felony to intimidate election workers in an effort to interfere with their official duties.

The exact language of the bill reads: "It is unlawful for any person to intimidate, threaten, coerce, harass, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, coerce, or harass an election worker with the intent to impede or interfere with the performance of the election worker's official duties, or with the intent to retaliate against such election worker for the performance of official duties."

The bill is similar to the Election Worker Protection Act of 2022, introduced in the U.S. Senate last September by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).

The Senate bill, which never made it out of the Rules Committee, reads: "It shall be unlawful for any person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, to intimidate, threaten, coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce an election worker with intent to impede, intimidate, or interfere with that election worker while the election worker is engaged in the performance of official duties, or with intent to retaliate against the election worker on the basis of the performance of such duties."

The bill also says the FBI "shall assign a special agent to each field office ... to investigate threats against election workers."

In April 2022, when the House had a Democrat majority, the Oversight and Reform Committee sent letters to Florida Supervisor of Elections offices soliciting "the most significant misinformation and disinformation claims" that they faced following the 2020 election and asking whether they had subsequently "been the subject of threats or physical or verbal attacks in connection with conspiracy theories, disinformation, or misinformation."

Republican election lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who chairs the Election Integrity Network, told Just the News on Thursday the left is pushing a "false narrative" about threats to election workers "to intimidate and get rid of the citizens who are now interested in what is going on at their election offices."

Much as "the left (and the Biden DOJ) calls parents at school board meetings 'domestic terrorists,' the left and their media sycophants continue to advance this notion that there are 'threats' to election officials that necessitate some sort of extra protections," Mitchell said. "That is a lie."

The Justice Department's Election Threats Task Force reported last August that it received over 1,000 reports of threats to election officials after its establishment in June 2021 but found that only about 11% "met the threshold for a federal criminal investigation" and charged just five people.

"And of those five, NONE involved poll observers or persons engaged with election integrity efforts," Mitchell said.

When Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite, Jr., reported on the results of the task force to the Senate Judiciary Committee in August, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) expressed his concern over the investigations causing "an undue effect on the chilling of First Amendment protected activity." Polite responded that Lee's concern is partly what makes the task force's work "significant."

Mitchell noted that "the only incidents we heard about in 2022 [regarding] shouting or threats at the polls ... [w]ere voters yelling at observers, because they had been brainwashed by this false narrative that observers were evil," despite the fact that "observers are part of the state laws of all but 2 states."

Phill Kline, director of election watchdog The Amistad Project, told Just the News his concern about laws targeting interference with election workers is that some officials may interpret "interfere" as people who "disagree with them."

While election workers must be able to do their jobs, and anyone committing violence should be arrested, he said, that doesn't mean officials are above being questioned about what they do.

They "must be accountable," as "accountability is a cornerstone of elections," Kline said.

"These laws could easily be used to reduce accountability [and] transparency" and, instead, "exclude" the public from observing the election process, he warned.

"Saying [that] to question an election result is somehow intimidating and subject to criminal penalties is a rather frightening approach to managing elections," he added, arguing that "passing such laws is a form of intimidation of questioning such government."