Jail is the new threat facing election workers
Election officials in Arizona could face criminal charges if a noncitizen registers to vote on their watch. In Iowa, a law enacted last year makes it a felony for election clerks to willfully buck state election laws. And in Florida, election supervisors face fines of up to $25,000 for leaving a ballot drop box unattended.
Across the country, election administrators face a growing number of punishing new laws as Republican lawmakers move to restrict ballot access after record turnout in the 2020 election and relentless false allegations by former President Donald Trump and his allies that widespread voter fraud cost him a second term.
This year alone, lawmakers have introduced 16 different bills in eight states that create new criminal or civil penalties for functions associated with running elections, said Will Wilder, who works on voting rights at the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice.
Taken together with the threats and harassment election officials have faced and other laws that make it easier to remove them from their jobs, "it all adds up to an attack on professionalized election administration," he said.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jail-is-the-new-threat-facing-election-workers/ar-AAX75P0
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