Just beyond the metal detectors and guards at Charleston County’s new board of elections headquarters in North Charleston, dozens of men and women pore over computer screens as part of a lesson on voting.
The volunteers are poll workers in training. And there’s a lot to learn before they are tested by one of the most divisive presidential elections. We've been asked to protect their privacy.
"The distrust in election officials now is at an all-time high,” says Isaac Cramer, the executive director for the Charleston County Board of Elections.
He worries about poll workers being harassed, threatened, even assaulted. It happened to him in 2022 when he says a voter upset over missing the deadline for registration repeatedly threatened to physically attack him. The man, he says, kept pushing and provoking for a fight outside.
“I had never been through something like that in my whole life,” says Cramer. “I was shaking.”
Cramer was so upset, he testified before Congress earlier this year. He told lawmakers about a group of people who stalked polling sites in Charleston County two years ago. And he read one of their social media posts.
It said in part, “For all of you on the team tomorrow observing the polls, good hunting. You know what you are looking for.”
A study this summer by the Brennan Center for Justice reveals that more than one third of local election officials nationwide report being abused, threated or harassed on the job.
Cramer fears this year, the political climate is even more intense.
That’s why he’s teamed up with Charleston County’s counter threat manager, Lauren Knapp. She’s a former intelligence officer for the Charleston County sheriff’s office who later worked for the National Counter Terrorism Center in Washington, D.C.
Knapp says misinformation is the biggest threat and the county is preparing to fight it much like a storm.
“We will be opening our emergency operations center just like it’s a hurricane,” says Knapp.
She says that puts the county’s emergency responders under one roof and in direct contact with 104 voting precincts. There, they can monitor what’s happening in real time and communicate more effectively.
Knapp believes quickly debunking misinformation and sharing facts is key to public safety.
She says the county is also preparing for every possible scenario it can think of, from social media threats, to protests, to power outages, to even another hurricane. She’s also in touch with federal officials who are reporting what they’ve seen, including suspicious packages with white powder mailed to polling sites.
“We have a room that manages that, that mitigates it,” says Knapp.
“It has its own system so that we can continue the vote so that it doesn’t impede the process and there’s not that doubt cast.”
Knapp says the county not only wants election workers to feel safe but voters too. They need to be confident the ballots they cast will be counted.
Cramer remembers when his work was relatively peaceful. Now he says threats of violence make it difficult to find poll workers. He says many recall all too well election workers being blamed amid claims of a stolen election by former President Donald Trump.
“The misinformation that came out in 2020 scared a lot of people,” says Cramer. “A lot of my long-term serving poll workers said, ‘I’m never doing this again.’”
Cramer believes elections should evoke excitement, not fear. His mother once dreamed of becoming a U.S. citizen and when she did, valued her right to vote.
“This is amazing. This is the United States of America. This is your voice,” says Cramer.
Cramer urges voters to do their part and prepare for election day, now just days away, on Nov. 5th. Early voting begins Monday, Oct. 21st.
