1 in 3 election officials have felt unsafe: survey

Roughly 1 in 3 local election officials say they have felt unsafe as a result of their jobs, and nearly one-sixth report being threatened, according to a new survey released on Wednesday.

The survey, conducted for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, also found that a majority of local election officials — 54 percent — believe that social media has made their jobs more dangerous. 

The survey was commissioned as part of a report by the Brennan Center about the increasingly hostile environment local election officials face in the wake of the 2020 presidential election and former President Trump’s false claims that widespread voter fraud and systemic irregularities tainted the November race. 

Trump, as well as his allies and supporters, have directed their ire in part at election officials, whom they blame for mishandling the voting process in 2020. They have also claimed in some cases that these parties acted in ways that were intended to benefit President Biden and Democrats. 

But the Brennan Center survey found that nearly two-thirds of local election officials — 63 percent — say they chose their jobs because they wanted to “ensure that the election process runs as it should.”

The survey also reflects the intense pressure that local election officials feel from social media, which has been used to spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. 

Seventy-eight percent of respondents said that social media has made their jobs at least somewhat more difficult, while the vast majority of those surveyed — 95 percent — said that social media has contributed to the sweeping divisions in the country. 

An overwhelming majority of respondents — 79 percent — also believe that the government should provide security services for local election officials when necessary, according to the survey. 

The survey was conducted for the Brennan Center by Benenson Strategy Group using a sample of 233 local election officials. It was fielded online from April 1 to 7 and has a margin of sampling error of 6.4 percentage points.