Election officials sound alarm over political interference in midterms

[0:00] After Virginia voters backed a push by Democrats to redraw congressional maps in their favor, [0:06] President Trump, without evidence, called it a rigged election and a travesty of justice. [0:11] It's the latest example of the president casting doubt on the U.S. election process. [0:16] Liz Landers joins us again with more on the concerns local election officials are expressing [0:21] with midterm election season well underway. [0:25] Amna, a recent Brennan Center study found more than half of local election workers [0:30] are worried about political interference. [0:33] In past election years, many have turned to the Federal Department of Homeland Security [0:36] and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, better known as CISA, [0:41] to help ward off potential election threats. [0:44] The tides have turned this year as the agency takes a back seat. [0:48] So we spoke to several local election officials about their worries over security, [0:53] resources, and getting the federal support they need. [0:56] My name is Matt Crane. [0:57] I'm the Executive Director of the Colorado County Clerks Association. [1:00] I'm Derek Bowens, the Elections Director for Durham County, North Carolina, [1:04] and I've been the Director of Elections here for nine years. [1:07] My name is Carly Coppess. [1:08] I'm the Weld County Clerk and Recorder in Colorado. [1:11] I'm Scott McDonnell, and I've been Dane County Clerk for 14 years. [1:15] I've been threatened with coming and being dragged out of my office and tarred and feathered in the parking lot. [1:21] Our concerns about physical security issues this year are pretty wide. [1:27] And keep in mind, last year in Colorado, we had an election office down in Archuleta County firebombs. [1:33] Somebody threw a Molotov cocktail into their tabulation room window. [1:37] So these things that have been threats have passed over into actual violence against election offices and election officials. [1:44] In 2024, we've moved into a brand-new consolidated facility with cameras, duress buttons, bulletproof glass, ballistic doors. [1:53] The election enthusiasts, as I will now try to call them, they found out that I was expecting a child. [2:00] Their rhetoric became focused on my unborn child. [2:05] I received emails and messages saying, you know, to the extent of your unborn child is, you know, the seed of the devil. [2:15] They've come up with a conspiracy theory, and by the time you formulate a response to it, they've already moved on to something else. [2:20] I mean, the point isn't the conspiracy theory. [2:23] It's just to sow doubt. [2:24] It's to make people doubt who won, not trust the system, and that's really damaging. [2:32] The support that we're getting from CISA, DHS, and some other of our federal partners is drastically changed. [2:40] In my opinion, at this point, there's just none. [2:43] There's zero support. [2:45] They undercut all of the competent people who actually understood the mission, had built relationships with the community, and they literally brought foxes into the henhouse. [2:54] I think my biggest concern is what comes as a result of misinformation. [3:03] I do have concerns about potential federal presence at polling places if we kind of look at some of the executive orders, some of the things that we've heard. [3:10] Is the FBI going to show up at our door? [3:12] Are they going to try to seize our equipment, our ballots? [3:16] Can we expect ICE agents or other federal agents at the polls in November? [3:20] I have hope that our democracy will sustain and that we'll continue to execute elections properly and people will accept the results. [3:27] But some of the rhetoric is concerning. [3:30] People have fought and died for this right. [3:32] You know, people have marched and been beaten for this right. [3:34] Clerks understand that and their teams understand that. [3:37] They're up to the moment for it. [3:38] They're working hard to prepare for it. [3:40] A recent investigation by ProPublica details a nationwide effort by the president and his allies to gain influence over the officials and offices that administer elections at the state and local level. [3:54] For more, I'm joined now by Jen Fifield, one of the reporters covering that story. [3:59] Jen, thank you for joining NewsHour. [4:01] Thanks for having me on. [4:01] Your reporting looks at what you describe as a long-standing strategy to reshape election administration. [4:09] Can you explain some of what is happening, what you found in your reporting? [4:13] Sure. [4:13] So, we studied the 2020 election and the guardrails that prevented Trump from overturning the election at that time. [4:21] And what he's done since he took office the second time to try to dismantle some of those guardrails. [4:27] That includes cybersecurity officials that were overseeing the cybersecurity infrastructure of our elections federally. [4:35] And that includes people within the Department of Justice who were doing things like protecting law enforcement from public, from partisan investigations into elections. [4:46] You mentioned cybersecurity. [4:48] There's this little-known agency. [4:49] People may not have heard of this, CISA, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. [4:54] It has historically helped states with cybersecurity of their own elections. [4:59] We heard from election officials that we interviewed who say that they don't trust CISA anymore to help them. [5:05] What changes have occurred there over the second Trump administration? [5:09] Sure. [5:10] So, CISA was created by Trump, actually, in 2017 and built up trust among these local officials who are really used to running their own elections. [5:19] Now, what we see is the people that they have grown to trust have all left. [5:23] And Trump has put into place, or the administration has put into place, people who have in the past questioned the 2020 election results or even spread misinformation about that election. [5:34] These are people now trying to communicate with the same state officials, the same local officials that ran those elections and believe they're free and fair. [5:43] So, the trust is really broken down. [5:45] You describe in your reporting an exodus of sorts of election officials that have left the federal government at agencies like the Department of Homeland Security after 2020. [5:55] How many people left, and why have they left? [5:59] We found about 75 or more people across the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, intelligence agencies that were working on elections. [6:10] They either resigned, were forced out, or their entire structure was dismantled. [6:17] And this includes people, like I said, that watch over cybersecurity, that make sure that there is no foreign influence in our elections, and other people within the Department of Justice that did voting protection lawsuits. [6:31] There have been plenty of threats from the president, especially during his first term, to try to change elections. [6:38] But they focused more on challenging things after the fact. [6:41] How is it different now? [6:43] These people are already doing unprecedented actions across the country. [6:47] For example, we saw the FBI raid in Georgia for their 2020 election material. [6:53] We saw action in Maricopa County, them subpoenaing our 2020 election information. [6:59] And now we see them in Michigan demanding that they get information and ballots about the 2024 election. [7:05] These are actions that experts say may not have taken place if people like the public integrity section in the Department of Justice still existed to judge whether these actions were politically motivated. [7:19] So, we're seeing a lot of action to look in the 2020 election and a lot of things to prepare, too, for the upcoming midterms. [7:26] There are election officials now in roles across the country who ran on some of these unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen. [7:37] How are these people shaping what we're seeing now? [7:40] Well, they're definitely trying to do things like, for example, some secretaries of state are running their voter rolls through this new save tool that's supposed to show them non-citizens [7:51] to remove from their voter rolls. [7:53] And they're moving forward with this, even though we've found that there's inaccuracies, that they're actually identifying citizens and marking them for removal from the voter rolls. [8:03] So, one of the big concerns from experts is that somehow these voters would be purged ahead of the election. [8:10] There are some outside groups like the Election Integrity Network who are helping to shape some of the policy and some of the personnel in the Trump administration. [8:19] Talk a little bit about that organization. [8:21] Sure. This is an organization that's run by Cleta Mitchell, who was a former Trump lawyer, and a few of the people within it are now in the federal government. [8:30] And that includes Heather Honey, who was a part of the Election Integrity Network and now helps to oversee voting systems. [8:38] I think part of the concern is, if there's any insinuation that voting machines are insecure, and that comes from the federal government, that comes from people that believe that the 2020 election was stolen, that's really hard to counter. [8:54] Jen Fifield with ProPublica, thank you so much for coming on and talking about this very important reporting. [8:59] Thank you for having me on. [9:00] Support journalism you trust. [9:14] Support PBS News. [9:16] Donate now, or even better, start a monthly contribution today.