How two Democrats teamed up to protect voters from MAGA-fueled intimidation
By Michael Jones
This past weekend, former President Donald Trump blew one of his most worn-out dog whistles: Diverse areas in blue cities swindled the 2020 election from him.
“I’m here only because they cheat. And they cheat in this state,” he said at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, last Sunday. “Philadelphia is out of control. Detroit is out of control. Atlanta is out of control.”
Three predominantly Black cities (Philadelphia, 40 percent; Detroit, 78 percent; Atlanta, 47 percent) in three swing states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia) that he lost four years ago and needs to win this year to return to the White House.
As the nation witnessed on Jan. 6, 2021, planting these seeds of mistrust with dog whistles that characterize nonwhite and immigrant communities as criminals who cheat to gain and maintain power can empower white nationalists to use physical force or violence to guarantee their preferred political outcome—even if it’s at odds with the will of the people.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-PA) introduced a bill last week to protect these communities from intimidation and threats of violence at the ballot box.
The legislation, entitled the Freedom from Intimidation in Elections Act, would update existing provisions in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to limit the presence of visible firearms at locations where voters cast their ballots or election workers perform their official duties.
“Election administration in the year 2024 also means being concerned about protecting voters and protecting election workers from harassment and threats of violence,” Padilla said last week at an event introducing the bill. “And sadly, there is a long dark history of voter suppression and intimidation in our country—well-documented scare tactics intended to deny the votes or discourage or even scare Americans away from the polls. And we know that in this day and age, there’s individuals out there stoked by partisan rhetoric and false narratives about election fraud that have taken it upon themselves to either discourage, at a minimum, or sometimes outright intimidate people into not letting their voice be heard in the democratic process.”
Deluzio said that to protect the foundational right to vote in American democracy, polling places and official ballot drop-off boxes must be free from intimidation and bolstered with action to strengthen the sanctity of US elections.
“I served in a war zone. Our polls should never feel like one,” he added. “Our government of, by, and for the people depends on our foundational right to vote. The recent lies around stolen elections and false claims of voter fraud have made things worse, the rhetoric has made things worse, and the prevalence of political violence is stressing our elections and our democracy. With bills like ours, we can help protect the security of our elections, and in doing so, also protect the foundational principles of our great nation, something that all freedom-loving Americans of every party should agree on and should stand for.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told me last week that the modern Republican Party has adopted voter suppression and intimidation as an electoral strategy.
“That’s quite unfortunate,” he said. “We’re going to continue to make sure that we have free and fair elections and that the American people can make the decision as to what is the best path forward in terms of the next president of the United States of America and who should govern in the majority in the House and the Senate.”
In addition to helping limit the presence of visible firearms at locations where voters cast their ballots or where election workers perform their official duties, the legislation will also provide a legal path for people who experience this type of intimidation, including an emergency civil, non-criminal junction that would allow a voter election official to carry out their official duties.
The legislation, co-sponsored by seven senators and Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA) in the House, comes after a poll released by the Brennan Center for Justice in May found that 38 percent of local election officials experienced threats, harassment, or abuse for doing their jobs. Throw in the gun violence epidemic, and it’s easy for Padilla to understand why folks are genuinely worried about their safety.
“We’re saying something simple: In no place in America should the fear of violence prevent somebody from being able to cast their vote,” he said. “And no election worker should have to fear for their sake or their life [while] administering the fundamental process of democracy that we call elections.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed a bill in Padilla’s home state, where he previously served as its chief elections official, to provide California voters and election workers these protections, but the senator said they should be in place for all voters nationwide.
“At this level, we need to lower the temperature on political rhetoric and make sure that all Americans feel safe enough to participate in our democracy by eliminating the fears of violence from election centers, we will be doing exactly that.”
Padilla added that one of the challenges he and voting rights advocates have faced over the years is the tension between his belief that the federal government has a significant role in all aspects of elections and others who push back and say states administer elections.
“From the lens of the interests of the people, we all got to work together,” he said. “Here we are offering a bill with resources to go along with to support state and local election administration officials. Because at the end of the day, as we’ve said before, every eligible American has the right to participate in this democracy without any unnecessary obstacles, barriers, and certainly free from intimidation.
Deluzio, who worked as a lawyer to protect American elections at Pitt Cyber, a University of Pittsburgh institute that works on tech policy and supports cutting-edge cyber research, and the Brennan Center, said he’s hopeful the bill will advance through the legislative process with support in the House and Senate.
However, while members of both parties view election security as a priority, they vastly differ on the best method to ensure it.
Congressional Republicans, following Trump’s cues, say the way to ensure election integrity is to stamp out voter fraud, which data on the 2020 election shows is minuscule.
In fact, several in the House were willing to shut down the government over a bill Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) attached to a funding extension that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, which is already illegal for noncitizens.
Democrats viewed the bill as a Trojan horse to enact portions of Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint I wrote about at length last week that proposes eliminating the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, which defends Americans of color in civil rights cases, among many other voter suppression schemes.
Beyond Padilla and Deluzio’s legislation, elected officials have worked to establish additional firewalls against political violence ahead of the election in less than five weeks and the counting and certification of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2025.
The Secret Service announced last month that it approved Mayor Muriel Bowser of the District of Columbia’s request to designate Jan. 6 a special national security event by Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.
“National special security events are events of the highest national significance,” Eric Ranaghan, the Special Agent in Charge of the Secret Service’s Dignitary Protective Division, said. “The US Secret Service, in collaboration with our federal, state, and local partners is committed to developing and implementing a comprehensive and integrated security plan to ensure the safety and security of this event and its participants.”
The designation allows the Secret Service to pool significant resources from the federal government and state and local partners into the comprehensive security plan, with the agency assuming the lead role for the design and implementation of the operational security plan.
The formal planning process for the event is underway. It began with forming an executive steering committee of senior representatives from federal, state, and local law enforcement and public safety partners and will start convening in the coming weeks.
This will be the first time this designation has been granted for the certification of electoral votes and follows recommendations from the House Select January 6 Committee and the Government Accountability Office to consider
The presidential inauguration on Jan. 20 was previously designated a national special security event and planning has been ongoing for several months, according to the Secret Service.
Following the insurrection, Congress revised the Electoral Count Act in 2022 to add to the procedures outlined in the Constitution for counting electoral votes following a presidential election. The reforms in the updated law are designed to prevent a repeat of violence and alleged crimes that followed former President Trump’s refusal to concede and allow for the peaceful transfer of power, which included a pressure campaign for former Vice President Mike Pence to block the formal certification of election results.
The act now allows for some preparation to take over the administration of the federal government from the incumbent president, even when an election result is unclear. It also clarified the vice president’s role in the certification of electoral votes.
It also guarantees expedited review of actions brought by an aggrieved candidate for president or vice president in the US District Court of the federal judicial district where the state capital is located. The Supreme Court can consider an appeal from the court’s judgment on an expedited basis and the court’s final order on remand must occur on the day before the electors’ meeting at the latest.
Even with these preparations, Padilla isn’t taking anything for granted.
“As much as I’d like to hope the best, our responsibility is to prepare for the worse,” he told reporters. “Between what you’ve shared, the chatter that we know is out there, and the increasingly toxic political rhetoric that has become the norm this presidential campaign, we have to be ready. And so this is our addition to a lot of strategies and plans that are being implemented right now.”
And despite the work Deluzio and his colleagues have done to protect election officials and voters, he acknowledged that lawmakers can’t legislate what’s in the hearts of candidates, including Trump, whom he calls the principal voice behind what happened on Jan. 6, and the continuing rise of the risk of political violence from his supporters.
“We can’t change the fact that the former president has called people convicted of crimes around the January 6 insurrection ‘political prisoners’—that lies with that man and others like him who support him,” Deluzio added. “And so we can do our duties here, but I think patriotic Americans across the political spectrum have to be clear about calling out that kind of political rhetoric and the violence it can encourage.”
Michael Jones is an independent Capitol Hill correspondent and contributor for COURIER. He is the author of Once Upon a Hill, a newsletter about Congressional politics.
