Michigan secretary of state announces 'panic button' for poll workers ahead of election

Michigan Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson this week announced that the state would implement a "panic button" system for the November election permitting election officials to quickly alert law enforcement in the event of a threat.

"I don't believe this is announced yet, but we will be rolling out a panic button type of communication for every election worker if clerks work with us, to implement it in their particular voting location to be able to text if something occurs," Benson said Monday.

Her remarks came during a meeting of the National Press Foundation in Detroit, WTVB reported.

"[W]e've done a number of scenario planning exercises with clerks all around the state with just about every clerk from Traverse City to Marquette, to Detroit to Grand Rapids and Flint, where we have brought law enforcement, first responders, and clerks together to go through different scenarios, tabletop exercise, so that we know and they know who to call, what to do if someone does show up armed and dangerous," she added.

Benson contended that the implementation of the "panic button" system was comparable to an initiative in Georgia from 2022 and that it would provide a "direct thing that someone can do right away from the safety of their polling location in order to report something and get law enforcement there right away."

Michigan was one of the keynote states to feature in former President Donald Trump's claims that mass voter fraud influenced the outcome of the presidential election in 2020. The state remains a battleground and it is expected to be a close contest.