New poll workers raising concerns in Michigan, other states
FILE - Jocelyn Benson, Michigan secretary of state, testifies as the Senate Judiciary Committee hears from election officials and Justice Department officials about the rise in threats toward elected leaders and election wor...Show moreThe Associated Press
LANSING, Mich. -- A shortage of poll workers has concerned local election officials in some parts of the country as the midterm elections approach. Not so in Michigan.
Conservative groups and local Republican Party operatives who have pushed false claims about the 2020 presidential election have recruited poll workers here by the thousands. Similar recruitment efforts on the right have bolstered the ranks of poll workers in some other states with nationally watched races.
Seeding the ranks of front-line election workers with people recruited by groups promoting election conspiracies has raised alarms among some that the people at the foundation of the election system could try to undermine it.
“It concerns me when the motivation to serve as a poll worker is fueled through misinformation and people who have been fed lies, in some cases, for years now,” said Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat. “Since the spring, clerks have come at us with concerning questions they’re getting and in some cases, hundreds of poll worker applications that seem to be motivated by nefarious intent.”
In Oakland County, the state’s second-most populous, Republicans “discouraged about the outcome of the 2020 election” have been urged to sign up as poll workers through a new Republican National Committee recruitment program.
“If you’re angry, fed up and fearful of a repeat of the horror show of November 2020, then this is one way you can help,” the Oakland County GOP website reads.
In Florida, three men who are part of the Miami-Dade GOP executive committee and also are reported to have ties to the far-right Proud Boys extremist group applied for and qualified to serve as poll workers in Miami. Election officials said they decided not to assign a precinct to one of them after learning he had been charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.