A bipartisan panel of four secretaries of state from key battleground states told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Thursday that they are prepared to hold a safe and secure presidential election despite previous threats to election workers.
A new election threat task force is poised to respond quickly if “any of these uglies that we’re all experiencing come back in 2020,” said Pennsylvania Secretary of the Union Al Schmidt.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asked moderator Kristen Welker if enough people are volunteering to be election workers in Georgia in 2020, where two election workers faced months of harassment and threats after conspiracy theorists accused them of tampering with ballots. here we are. pretty good form. The districts have done a great job in recruiting.”
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson added that she is paying more attention this year to how to protect election workers, and Welkere said, “We need to protect the people who protect democracy. And that’s a lot of things we’re trying to prepare for this year.”
When asked if they were personally threatened after the 2020 presidential election, each secretary of state said they were.
“This has affected all of us,” said Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, adding, “One of the ways I look at it and address it is to tell the really hard truth. It is this: Threats against election officials in the United States of America are domestic terrorism.”
Schmidt agreed, and told Welkere, “The purpose of these threats is really to terrorize and intimidate and deter us and our election officials from doing or not doing something that is their job at the county and precinct level. Accountability is the cornerstone of our system of government.”
The secretaries, who each serve in a state where the Trump campaign has taken legal action to challenge the 2020 election results, said they are prepared to fight any misinformation spread during the vote.
“It’s a problem that’s bigger than any other problem, it’s wrong, wrong and misinformation,” Fontes said.
“The system has checks and balances all the way through,” he said.
According to Raffensperger, election officials in Georgia are now allowed to scan and pre-process mail-in ballots, which will allow the results of those ballots to be released to the public sooner than in 2020.
“The results will be much faster,” Welkere said.
But with all these changes, Schmidt said, it’s important to educate voters about new processes that could affect how they vote, when they can vote and how quickly ballots are counted.
The election “changed a lot,” Schmidt said, adding, “It’s no wonder people have questions. And it is our duty to answer these questions, provided that those people ask questions that they want to know the truth about the elections. “When we get more information about the elections, we have more confidence in them.”
Benson echoed Schmidt in stressing the importance of transparency.
“We welcome people to ask us questions. We welcome people to serve as election workers so they can see first-hand how secure our elections are and see how much security we have in place to ensure that only valid citizens vote and that we count every valid and only valid vote.” he said.