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38% of Local Election Officials Were Threatened, Harassed, or Abused on the Job

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38% Threatened, Harassed, or Abused

Thirty-eight percent of local election officials said they had been threatened, harassed, or abused because of their job, in the Brennan Center’s 2025 survey. Reports of armed watchers and vigilante-style voter challenges at polling places have increased in every cycle since 2020.

38% of local election officials threatened, harassed, or abused.

Federal judges who ruled on election cases faced 564 threats per year. Election workers who count the ballots face worse, with no security detail and no legal protection in most states.

What Intimidation Looks Like

It is not subtle. Armed individuals stationed outside polling places in Arizona and Georgia during the 2024 election. Mass challenges filed against voter eligibility in counties with high minority populations.

Photography of voters entering polling locations posted to social media with identifying information. Poll watchers who refuse to follow distance rules and intimidate voters in line.

States have inconsistent rules about what constitutes intimidation versus “observation.” Federal law prohibits voter intimidation but enforcement is weak and penalties are rarely applied. The Department of Justice scaled back election monitoring in 2025.

What You Can Do

  1. Write your representatives about protecting election workers →
  2. Sign up with a nonpartisan voter protection group like Election Protection if you can be at the polls this cycle.
  3. Check your state’s voter protection resources before early voting begins.

Correction, September 23, 2026: An earlier version of this brief said 38% of election workers reported threats in 2024, up from 17% in 2020, and that one in five quit. The 38% figure comes from the Brennan Center’s 2025 survey of local election officials and counts threats, harassment, or abuse together; the 17% figure measured something different, and we could not verify the one-in-five figure, so both were removed. For current guidance on what to do at the polls, see our voter intimidation explainer.

Sources

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