[The Georgia RICO indictment details the targeting of both
election machines and election officials. ]
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INDICTMENTS OF TRUMP AND ALLIES HIGHLIGHT NEED TO PROTECT ELECTION
SYSTEMS  
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Derek Tisler and Lawrence Norden
August 15, 2023
Brennan Center for Justice
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_ The Georgia RICO indictment details the targeting of both election
machines and election officials. _

Mug shot of Donald Trump at his Fulton County jail booking,

 

As Georgia prosecutors announced the indictment of former President
Trump and 18 others for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election,
much attention has been paid to the infamous phone call
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which Trump told Georgia’s chief election official that he wanted
“to find 11,780 votes.” But this phone call was only one part of
a broad campaign
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pressure Georgia’s public officials to cast doubt on the election
results or even disregard the will of the voters. And the effort did
not stop on January 6 — the lies spread and the futile pursuit to
build support for those lies created lasting consequences for
elections, both in Georgia and across the country.

By the end of November 2020, most states, including Georgia, had not
only finished counting all ballots, but also conducted recounts and
post-election audits that confirmed the presidential election outcome
every time. In Georgia, counties first counted all ballots using
electronic tabulators, then counted all ballots by hand
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and then recounted all ballots
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different electronic tabulators, each time confirming that Trump had
lost the election. Courts across the country had also considered and
rejected more than 60 lawsuits [[link removed]] that
claimed there was outcome-determinative fraud.

Yet on December 3, Trump advisors Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman (both
indicted) appeared before the Georgia State Senate
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spreading conspiracies about the election, falsely accusing two
election workers of fraud and urging the senators to appoint false
electors to support Trump. On December 5, Trump reportedly called
Gov. Brian Kemp
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demanding that he call for a special legislative session to overturn
the election results. Similar calls and meetings continued over the
next month
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Georgia’s attorney general, state house of representatives, an
investigator with the secretary of state’s office, and finally,
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger himself. At each step, Trump and
his allies presented baseless claims of widespread fraud that state
officials rebuked. In the meantime, Trump’s allies allegedly
arranged for a fake slate of Trump-supporting electors
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wrongly declare themselves duly elected and assert that Trump won the
presidential election.

The scheme eventually spread from lies about the last election to
actions that threaten future elections. The day after the January 6
attack, a Coffee County, Georgia election official who had previously
spread conspiracies
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Dominion Voting Systems welcomed a team of security researchers into
the election office to examine the county’s equipment. The security
researchers — who were reportedly paid for by a nonprofit run by
Trump ally Sidney Powell and had previously been hired to examine
voting systems
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Michigan and Nevada — allegedly copied software and data from the
county’s voting systems and posted the data
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a password-protected site where election deniers across the country
could download it. Powell and three others have now been indicted.

The Coffee County voting system breach was one of many similar
incidents
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the country where Trump’s supporters sought to gain access to voting
systems and other critical election infrastructure. Fortunately,
officials in Georgia
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other states have responded to these breaches by decommissioning the
affected equipment
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ordering replacements. Colorado
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a step further by prosecuting the responsible parties. But these
breaches still present a significant threat to election security.
Although there is no evidence that any voting equipment was
manipulated in a way that would impact election results, election
deniers have nonetheless used the data obtained to try to create a
credible veneer for their allegations of stolen elections. And the
incidents may encourage more damaging attacks down the road.

Trump and his allies’ attacks on Georgia’s elections also spurred
attacks on the people who run those elections. Ruby Freeman and Shaye
Moss, a mother and daughter who served as poll workers in 2020, faced
a barrage of violent threats
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forced them into hiding after Trump and Giuliani falsely accused them
of fraud (Giuliani recently conceded in a court filing
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his statements about Freeman and Moss were false). Raffensperger and
his family faced similar threats and intimidation
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that forced them into hiding and prevented them from visiting their
grandchildren. The threats of violence against election workers became
so widespread, they led Gabe Sterling, then a voting systems manager
at the Georgia secretary of state’s office, to publicly plead with
Trump
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condemn the harassment before someone was killed. In the days before
the Georgia indictment, Sterling said
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the risk of incendiary lies about election integrity spurring violence
against public officials remains his biggest concern.

Here too Georgia has mirrored a broader trend: rising threats and
harassment
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election workers. The Brennan Center’s April 2023 nationwide survey
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election officials found that nearly one in three have been harassed,
abused, or threatened because of their job, and an alarming one in
five are concerned about being physically assaulted on the job in
future elections.

Our poll also found that a majority of election officials are worried
about political interference in how they do their jobs, including one
in nine who are concerned about facing pressure to certify election
results in favor of a specific candidate or party in future elections.
The relentless pressure campaign on public officials in 2020 surely
contributed to this concern, as did the wave of laws
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state legislatures passed after 2020 that criminalized
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range of election worker activities or that limited election
officials’ authority over elections — for example, when the
Georgia legislature removed the secretary of state
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the state election board.

These attacks have pushed many experienced election workers out of the
profession altogether, leaving a significant gap in election
administration knowledge. In North Carolina, at least 40 of the
state’s 100 counties
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replaced their election director over the last four years. And in
Nevada, 10 of the state’s 17 counties
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changed their top election official since 2020. Nationwide, one in
five
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election officials are expected to be administering their first
presidential election in 2024. This extensive turnover may risk more
administrative errors while running elections, fueling further
conspiracies and attacks on our democracy.

Seeking accountability is necessary but not sufficient to repair a
democratic system that has been badly damaged by the election denial
movement that continues across the country. Ahead of 2024, leaders at
all levels of government must not only stand up for the integrity of
our election system, but also invest in safeguards
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protect the people who run it and our democracy as a whole.

_Derek Tisler [[link removed]]
serves as counsel in the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy
Program. His work focuses on issues related to election
administration, security, and disinformation. He is a co-author of
several recent reports at the Brennan Center, including Election
Officials under Attack (2021), How to Fix the New York City Board of
Elections (2021), and Ensuring Safe Elections (2020). His work has
been featured in media outlets across the country, including Foreign
Affairs, FiveThirtyEight, and The Hill, among others._

_Lawrence Norden
[[link removed]] (_@larrynorden
[[link removed]]_) is the senior director of the
Elections and Government Program, where he leads the Brennan
Center’s work in a variety of areas, including its effort to bring
balance to campaign funding and break down barriers that keep
Americans from participating in politics, ensure that U.S. election
infrastructure is secure and accessible to every voter, and protect
elections from disinformation and foreign interference. His work has
been featured in media outlets across the country, including the New
York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and
National Public Radio. He has testified before Congress and several
state legislatures on numerous occasions._

The Brennan Center for Justice [[link removed]]
is a nonpartisan law and policy institute. We strive to uphold the
values of democracy. We stand for equal justice and the rule of law.
We work to craft and advance reforms that will make American democracy
work, for all.

* Trump Indictment
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* election security
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