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Threats to election officials since the 2020 election

Main article: Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election#Conspiracy allegations

The period during and after the 2020 United States presidential election saw an unprecedented rise in threats and harassment directed at election officials fueled by disproven claims that election officials had been complicit in a conspiracy to steal the presidential election from Donald Trump.

Prominent examples:

• Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea' Moss were driven from their home by death threats after being falsely accused by Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani of manipulating vote tallies. Freeman and Moss subsequently won a defamation judgment against Giuliani.
• After Trump falsely claimed that then-Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt, a Republican, "refuse[d] to look at a mountain of corruption & dishonesty" in the city, including a disproven allegation that 8,000 ballots had been cast in the names of dead voters, Schmidt received graphic threats. Some included his children's names, ages, and schools, as well as a picture of the family home, along with threats to kill the children.
• After a standoff with Arizona Senate Republicans over the handling of post-election voting materials, Republican Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates and his family were subject to explicit death threats, and Gates was hospitalized for treatment of PTSD.
• Following the phone call in which President Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find 11,780 votes" and overturn the state's 2020 election results, Raffensperger and his family received death threats and "disgusting sexualized texts." The home of his daughter-in-law and two grandchildren was invaded by Trump supporters, and the home of his chief operating officer Gabriel Sterling was swatted.
• Threatening letters, some containing fentanyl, were mailed to elections offices in at least five states in November 2023, with some including messages such as "End elections now."

Some election workers as much as two years after the 2020 election reported varying their routes to their homes and offices to avoid being followed, training in de-escalation techniques, and upgrading their home security systems. As a result of the ongoing threat environment, the profession as a whole has experienced an unparalleled exodus. A study by the Bipartisan Policy Center and UCLA found a four-year turnover rate of 39% for election officials in 2022.

In Fall 2021, Democratic election law attorney Bob Bauer (White House Counsel during the Obama Administration) and Republican election law attorney Ben Ginsberg (who represented the George W. Bush 2000 presidential campaign) launched the Election Official Legal Defense Network (EOLDN), a service connecting election administrators in need of legal advice or assistance with qualified, licensed pro bono attorneys. A project of the nonpartisan nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research, EOLDN consisted of more than 6,000 attorneys in 47 states as of June 2024.

In response to concerns expressed by election administrators of both parties regarding an "expanded threat environment," EOLDN announced a broadening of its scope in February 2025 by preparing to assist election officials in the event of targeting by federal agencies including the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or Congress.

Case study: Georgia 2020

In July 2019, after legal challenges and concerns about the security and reliability of its aging electronic voting machines, Georgia officials approved a $107 million contract with Dominion Voting Systems to equip all 159 Georgia counties with new ballot-marking devices that provided a paper ballot for every vote cast (VVPAT). The upgrade was completed in time for the 2020 Georgia Republican and Democratic presidential primaries.

The system proved critical during the general election in November 2020. A razor-thin margin of victory for Joe Biden (0.23 percent and 11,779 votes)—the first by a Democratic presidential candidate in the state since 1992—automatically triggered a statewide audit, made possible by the new auditable paper ballot system. The audit found several human errors at the county level, netting Trump 1,274 votes. At the Trump campaign's request, this was followed by a full statewide hand recount of the paper ballots, which confirmed the result.

As recently as the 2016 election, the lack of a system producing auditable paper ballots would have made a recount impossible. But the VVPAT system allowed officials to cross-check electronic results with paper records, ensuring the accuracy of the vote count.

Here are the key aspects of how the VVPAT system was critical:

1. Hand Recount: Georgia’s VVPAT system allowed for a statewide hand recount of the paper ballots generated by the machines, which confirmed the accuracy of the original electronic count. This was essential in validating the election outcome and addressing claims of irregularities
2. Audits for Transparency: The VVPAT-enabled audits provided transparency and accountability. By comparing the paper ballots to the electronic records, the audit reassured the public that the vote tally reflected the true voter intent

1. Addressing Misinformation: Amid claims of widespread election fraud, Georgia's VVPAT system was a central tool in debunking these allegations, as the paper audit trail provided verifiable evidence that the electronic results were accurate

Georgia’s implementation of the VVPAT system helped maintain election integrity, increased voter confidence, and provided a reliable method to verify the results during the intense scrutiny of the 2020 election.