Michigan election officials are preparing for the hypothetical election disruptions that could occur during the November general election, according to a report from the Detroit Free Press.
At an event hosted by the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, Michigan election officials and law enforcement discussed disruptive scenarios to train people at offices across the state. Training will occur in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Traverse City, and Marquette to help communities plan for disruptions as early as possible.
“There were things that happened in 2020 that I think caught all of us by surprise,” said Clerk Tina Barton, who helps lead the training for the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections. “Every election cycle has something in it that loves to throw a tiny bit of chaos.”
Michigan is one of seven key battleground states this election cycle. President Joe Biden won the state in 2020, flipping it from former President Donald Trump’s narrow win in the Wolverine State in 2016.
The scenarios that election workers are being trained on aren’t too far-fetched, as many have occurred since the 2020 election.
During the 2022 midterm elections, a Michigan polling location was closed due to a bomb threat after a poll worker found a suspicious backpack. Last year, envelopes including fentanyl were sent to multiple election offices in battleground states such as Nevada and Georgia. In New Mexico, an AI-generated voice message was falsely sent from the state’s secretary of state, telling poll workers they were not needed on Election Day.
Many election clerks are entering 2024 with the knowledge of 2020 in the front of their minds. According to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, her state has not experienced high election official turnover from people leaving their jobs in the wake of the 2020 election like other states have.
“We go into 2024 with the benefit of experiencing … levers being pulled and tactics being deployed in Michigan and seeing things happen in other states and knowing that at the very least we have to be prepared for a repeat of all of those and then some,” Benson said.
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Some of the goals of the “tabletop exercises” are to take away the fear of possible disruptions that could happen on Election Day.
“We still have nightmares every night, and that’s just the reality of the work,” Benson said.