ATLANTA (AP) — Outraged by false allegations of fraud against a Georgia elections employee in 2020, Amanda Rouser made a vow as she listened to the woman testify before Congress in June about the racist threats and harassment she faced.
“I said that day to myself, ‘I’m going to go work in the polls, and I’m going to see what they’re going to do to me,’” Rouser, who like the targeted employee is Black, recalled after stopping by a recruiting station for poll workers at Atlanta City Hall on a recent afternoon. “Try me, because I’m not scared of people.”
Carolyn Barnes, a prospective poll worker, was also attracted to the event by fraud allegations, although she was about 40 miles further north.
“I believe that we had a fraudulent election in 2020 because of the mail-in ballots, the advanced voting,” Barnes, 52, said after applying to work the polls for the first time in Forsyth County. “I truly believe that the more we flood the system with honest people who are trying to help out, it will straighten it out.”
Barnes, who declined to give her party affiliation, said she wants to use her position as a poll worker to share her observations about “the gaps” in election security and “where stuff could happen afterwards.”
Nearly two decades after the last presidential election there is no evidence of widespread fraud and manipulation of voting machines. Numerous reviews in the battleground states where former President Donald Trump disputed his loss to President Joe Biden have affirmed the results, courts have rejected dozens of lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies, and even Trump’s own Department of Justice concluded the results were accurate.
According to poll workers, experts, and election officials, false claims regarding the 2020 presidential race by the former president and his support are generating renewed interest in the work of the polls in Georgia for the upcoming midterm elections.
Like Rouser, some aim to shore up a critical part of their state’s election system amid the lies and misinformation about voting and ballot-counting. However, conspiracy theories and false claims have also gained traction among conservative voters. This has led some to sign up for election administration.
Sean Morales Doyle, an election security expert at Brennan Center for Justice, stated that the possibility that they could play a critical role at polling stations is a new concern this election cycle.
“I think it’s a problem that there may be people who are running our elections that buy into those conspiracy theories and so are approaching their role as fighting back against rampant fraud,” he said.
However, he cautioned that not one poll worker can disrupt voting or manipulate results.
The Associated Press talked to roughly two dozen prospective poll workers in September during three recruiting events in two Georgia counties — Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta and where more than 70 percent of voters cast a ballot for Biden, and Forsyth County north of Atlanta, where support for Trump topped 65 percent.
Nearly half of respondents said that the 2020 election had influenced their decision to become poll workers.
“We don’t want Donald Trump bullying people,” said Priscilla Ficklin, a Democrat, while taking an application at Atlanta City Hall to be a Fulton County poll worker. “I’m going to stand up for the people who are afraid.”
Carlette Dryden claimed that she went to Forsyth County to cast her ballot in 2020, only to be informed that she had already voted by mail. She claimed she was allowed to vote later by elections officials, but she suspects that someone fraudulously voted in her name. Her experience is indicative of larger problems with the voting system across the country.
She said that her role wasn’t to check on voters or eradicate fraud.
“What I’m signing up to do is to help others that are coming through here that may need assistance or questions answered,” she said.
Georgia was a focus of Trump’s attempts to undo his 2020 election defeat to Biden. He pressured the state’s Republican secretary of state in a January 2021 phone call to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s victory in the state and seized on surveillance footage to accuse the Black elections worker, Wandrea Moss, and her mother, Ruby Freeman, of pulling out suitcases of fraudulent votes in Fulton County. Although this allegation was disproved quickly, it was widely spread by conservative media.
Moss revealed to the House Jan. 6, committee that she had received threats of death and racist messages.
At a farmer’s market in the politically mixed suburb of Alpharetta north of Atlanta, Deborah Eves said she was concerned about being harassed for working at a voting site but still felt compelled to sign up.
Eves, a substitute teacher, was a Democrat and visited a Fulton County office to recruit. It was located next to stands that sold single origin coffee, honey, empanadas and other products.
“I feel like our government is ‘we the people, and ’we the people’ need to step up and do things like poll working so that we can show that nobody’s cheating, nobody’s trying to do the wrong thing here,” she said.
Allison Saunders, who worked at a voting site for the first time during the state’s May primary, said she believes Moss and Freeman were targeted because they are Black. Saunders, a Democrat, was visiting the farmer’s market with her son.
“More people that look like me need to step up and do our part,” said Saunders, who is white. “I think it’s more important to do your civic duty than to be afraid.”
After the 2020 election, there was a mass exodus of full time elections officials across the country due to the threat. Recruiters say they have not seen a similar drop in people who have previously done poll work — temporary jobs open to local residents during election season. Some larger counties have reported difficulty filling those positions.
Since long, working at the polls is considered an apolitical civic responsibility. It involves greeting voters, setting up the machines and answering any questions.
Although the U.S. does not require that potential poll workers be vetted on their political views, most states have policies that require them to employ a mix of Republican and Democratic workers at each location.
Forsyth County’s elections director, Mandi Smith, said she was not worried about having people who believe the last presidential election was fraudulent serve as poll workers. Training is provided by the county that stresses that positions are not partisan and that workers must adhere to certain rules.
“It’s a very team-driven process, as well, in the sense that there are multiple poll workers there and you are generally not working alone,” she said.
Ginger Aldrich, who attended the county’s recruiting event, said she knows people who believe the last election was stolen from Trump. Their views made her curious about what she described as the “mysterious” aspects of the voting process, such as where ballots go after they leave the voting site.
“There’s going to be some people that are unscrupulous, and they are going to spend all this time figuring out how to beat the system,” said Aldrich, who is retired.
She believes in fraud in elections but she stated that she is willing to use her experience working as a poll worker in order to convince people that there are no problems with her county’s midterm elections.
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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://bit.ly/3BO1yVB and on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ap_politics
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