WASHINGTON - At a Senate Rules Committee hearing titled, “Ongoing Threats to Election Administration,” U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration with oversight over federal elections, emphasized the need to address threats to election workers and safeguard free and fair elections across the country. 

“Public servants who have been threatened over the last few years come from red, blue, and purple states, they are Democrats and Republicans. Many are volunteers, and they are essential to the administration of our free and fair elections,” said Klobuchar. “But persisting threats, which rose alarmingly in recent years as we've discussed in this Committee, have resulted in all too many of these workers leaving their jobs. At the same time, it has made it harder to recruit more poll workers and other officials to run our elections.” 

“Protecting election workers should not be a partisan issue,” Klobuchar continued. “We must work together to find common ground to protect the people on the frontlines of our democracy.”

A rough transcript of Klobuchar’s full opening statement is available below. 

Good afternoon. I’m honored to call this hearing of the Rules and Administration Committee to order. I’d like to thank Ranking Member Fischer, our colleagues, our staff, and all of our wonderful witnesses… 

I also know that, Senator Butler, this is her first hearing, and we welcome you to the Committee as a new member, thank you. I also note that you are going to be presiding, so we will try to accommodate that as well. 

We do want to [take] a moment to thank Senator Feinstein, a monumental figure in Congress and trailblazer and the first woman to chair this Committee, and she also chaired the inauguration. So we thank her. We know Senator Padilla knew her very well, and we miss her. 

Our witnesses, who I will introduce shortly, are Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt, who testified before this Committee in 2021. Elizabeth Howard, who is the Deputy Director of the Democracy Program for Elections at the Brennan Center. 

And I know Senator Fischer will be introducing Nebraska Deputy Secretary of State for Elections, Wayne Bena, and then Senator Hagerty will be introducing the Administrator of Elections for Rutherford County in Tennessee, Alan Farley. 

We are just over a year until the 2024 election. We're here to discuss the ongoing threats and abusive conduct targeting election workers across the country and the need for bipartisan solutions to counter these threats. 

Public servants who have been threatened over the last few years come from red, blue, and purple states, they are Democrats and Republicans. Many are volunteers, and they are essential to the administration of our free and fair elections. In all 50 states, they are now hard at work to ensure that the upcoming elections run smoothly, with some primary ballots actually going out as soon as next month. 

But persisting threats, which rose alarmingly in recent years, as we've discussed in this Committee, have resulted in all too many of these workers leaving their jobs. At the same time, it has made it harder to recruit more poll workers and other officials to run our elections. 

Here's what is at stake: 

In Arizona, Secretary, 80 percent of counties have lost their chief local election official in the last three years. And as Secretary Fontes noted in his written testimony, Arizona has lost a combined 176 years of expertise with those officials. In Pennsylvania, more than 50 top local election officials resigned over the same time period. In some states, county election offices have lost all of their staff, as we saw in Buckingham County, Virginia, earlier this year.

This turnover is happening in states nationwide, resulting in a loss of valuable experience. According to one study, of 161 counties in 11 western states that have new chief election officials in the past three years, the median amount of experience has dropped from about eight years to one year. 

It's not hard to understand why election workers are leaving their posts and resigning. Their families have experienced horrific threats ass Secretaries Fontes and Schmidt are well aware. Secretary Fontes’ children had to vacate their home for days following serious threats to their safety, and last year in Maricopa County there were armed people, some dressed in camo, intimidating voters at drop boxes. 

When Secretary Schmidt last appeared before our Committee, he shared with us how his address, a picture of his house, and his kids’ names had been put out on the internet, along with the graphic messages he received threatening their lives. That was while he served as a Republican election official. 

We heard about several more harrowing experiences that election workers face while on the job during last year's midterms. One election worker in Oregon reported being almost run off the road while driving by a woman yelling “traitor” out of her window. And one Maricopa County official in Arizona shared that last November, he received a threat identifying his home address and threatening the lives of his four children. 

According to an April 2023 survey of local election officials from the Brennan Center, nearly one in three say they have been either threatened, abused, harassed and one in five say they know someone who left their job in elections due to safety concerns. Notably, the Department of Homeland Security released an advisory in May warning about violent extremism, including threats related to elections. 

In states such as Georgia, we have also seen efforts to remove election officials from their positions, including efforts targeting nonpartisan officials in Texas and Wisconsin. Protecting election workers should not be a partisan issue. And as we will hear from our witnesses about the ongoing threats, we must work together to find common ground to protect the people on the frontlines of our democracy. 

Last year, before Senator Fischer and I together chaired this Committee, Senator Blunt was the lead Republican, and he and I worked together on the Election Assistance Commission actions, we asked them to act, and they voted unanimously to allow election officials to use federal funding to protect election workers from threats and harassment. This was a step forward, but we need to do more to ensure election officials have the resources they need. 

I lead comprehensive legislation, the Freedom to Vote Act, that includes provisions to protect election officials from threats and harassment. I also introduced the Election Worker Protection Act with 26 co-sponsors to provide needed resources to states to recruit and train election workers, make safety improvements, and establish safeguards to shield election workers from intimidation and threats. The urgent need to protect election workers is clear. And we've had a number of Secretaries of States across the country endorse this bill. The Justice Department also must play a key role, as well as local law enforcement, in making sure that election workers are protected. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about these serious issues and how we can work together to address them. 

With that I will turn it over to Senator Fischer.

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