Last fall, a man attempted to set fire to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home while he and his family were inside. Throughout the last year, President Donald Trump has also experienced multiple assassination attempts. These incidents underscore a troubling reality: elected officials are facing growing threats of political violence. And we’re now seeing 15% of Americans find it sometimes justifiable to use violence to spur change. The danger does not stop with elected officials. It is also increasingly directed at the local officials responsible for running our country’s elections.
In 2024, a man was charged with making death threats toward election officials in Colorado and Arizona, saying he would hang them for doing their jobs. This is not a standalone instance. Death threats, doxxing and swatting have become the daily reality for the public servants who run American elections. Not to mention armed protesters outside election offices, baseless lawsuits, raids justified by conspiracy theories and demands for sensitive voter and election data — including the Justice Department’s recent demand that Wayne County turn over 2024 election records and ballots.
As former members of Congress, we refuse to accept that this is simply “part of the job.” It is an assault on the people who make our democracy possible, and it is driving election officials out of their jobs at an alarming rate.
A recent Issue One report finds that, since the 2020 presidential election, half of chief local election officials across the Western United States have left their positions — often without finishing their terms. Strikingly, roughly 76% left voluntarily. Experienced election officials chose to leave environments that had become hostile, politicized and, too often, dangerous.
The people who administer our elections are our neighbors and friends — trained professionals who believe in the rule of law and the idea that every eligible American should be able to vote and have that vote count. For generations, they did their work in near anonymity. Today, many do it under threat. In 2024 alone, Colorado’s secretary of state received more than 1,800 threats of violence and death. A survey that year found nearly 70% of election officials have faced intimidation, about 60% harassment and roughly 30% direct threats of violence.
Turnover is highest in large, populous counties and closely contested battlegrounds, where political pressure is most intense. In some places, leadership has turned over multiple times in just a few years. We cannot afford to keep losing veteran election officials at this pace.
The spread of election denialism after 2020 put targets on the backs of election administrators. Conspiracy theories are now used to justify raids of election offices and fishing expeditions for sensitive voter data. Baseless lawsuits have become routine. New demands are proposed without the funding, staffing or legal clarity to carry them out safely. Not to mention President Donald Trump’s pressure on Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act, which would increase executive control over elections, impose strict document requirements for voter registration, saddle election administrators with unfunded burdens and make voting harder for millions of Americans. When the executive branch treats election administration as a political battlefield, local officials pay the price.
The responsibility for fixing this lies with Congress. Under Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution, Congress, not the executive branch, has the power to set rules related to federal elections. The remedies are neither complicated nor partisan. Congress must reassert its Article I role and push back against unconstitutional executive overreach. It must fund the mandates it imposes, invest in election security, pass legislation protecting officials from threats and harassment, and conduct real oversight of conspiracy-fueled executive actions targeting election administration — including Justice Department demands for sensitive voter and election data like those recently directed at Wayne County, bogus raids and “investigations” of election officials.
The people who run our elections should not have to choose between public service and personal safety. They should not be driven out by a political environment that Congress has the power — and the duty — to fix.
Tim Roemer is a former ambassador to India and U.S. representative who served Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District. Fred Upton is a former U.S. representative who served Michigan’s 4th and 6th Congressional Districts. Both are part of Issue One’s ReFormers Caucus, a group of nearly 200 former members of Congress, governors and Cabinet secretaries united to fix our broken political system.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Congress should step up to protect election officials | Opinion
Reporting by Tim Roemer and Fred Upton / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
