Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson Explains Polling Place Protections. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and other officials have taken unprecedented steps to protect election workers against threats.
by Hope Kahn, National Press Foundation
The volatile political climate promises to test the voting process as never before, as officials have taken unprecedented steps to protect 2024 election workers against rising threats, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson told NPF’s Election Fellows.
Benson said Michigan is preparing to outfit local election workers with a “panic button type of communication” to immediately alert law enforcement in case of a threat. Officials hope to have the tool in place by November “if clerks work with us to implement it in their particular voting location.”
It is a now a crime in Michigan to threaten an election official in the line of work, and Benson said federal funding through the CARES Act has allowed for heightened election security, such as bulletproof glass and security workers. Additional de-escalation training has been provided, as well.
In her book, "State Secretaries of State: Guardians of the Democratic Process," she documented how Democrats and Republicans worked in their non-partisan roles as election administrators, and explored whether election officials are “making it easier to vote and harder to cheat.”
“Democrats are seen as oftentimes trying to increase access to the vote and Republicans often seen as prioritizing security of the process,” said Benson, the state’s top election official. “Good professional election administrators do and can easily do both of those things at the same time.”
She encourages journalists to look at clerks, election officials and secretaries through the lens of, “are they doing both?”
She said one example of doing both would be how they’re ID-ing voters.
“We all identify every voter before they get a ballot, whether it’s a signature or an ID,” she said. But in Michigan, she said they’ve expanded the number of IDs available such as student IDs and tribal IDs.
“So expanding the number of IDs that are useful for voting and not restricting them…That’s something that a lot of us on both sides of the aisle have worked to do as a way to validate the need for identifying every voter, but also ensure that everything we do in that regard does not block an eligible citizen from exercising their fundamental right to vote.”
Benson encourages journalists to become experts in election laws in the states that they’re covering. She says election officials have been providing media training for journalists, which includes “intricacies of how we verify voters identities, what an e-poll book is, how we ensure only U.S. citizens are voting and everything in between.”
The 2024 elections loom as a decisive moment for democracy and journalism.
“We will continue to see, I believe, all candidates talk about democracy in various different ways. And what both of those things give all of you is a massive responsibility to see things for what they are and cover them accordingly.”
Speaker: Jocelyn Benson, Michigan Secretary of State
Summary, transcript and resources: nationalpress....
This fellowship was sponsored by Arnold Ventures. NPF is solely responsible for its content.
This video was produced within the Evelyn Y. Davis studios.
Негізгі бет ‘Panic Button’ Created for Election Workers
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