Georgia Becomes First State To Mandate Election Intimidation Training for Law Enforcement — But At What Cost?

Election deniers have put states in a position of having to involve law enforcement more heavily in elections this fall. And while it’s a crucial step in the direction of better protecting poll workers and voters after right-wing chaos was injected into the 2020 election, the changes also have the potential to create an environment of intimidation at the polls. 

Georgia has become the first state to require law enforcement to be trained on election intimidation and election interference — a direct response to the particularly violent wave of threats against election workers in the state after Donald Trump and his allies pressured officials and questioned the results there following the 2020 election.

The newly-approved one-hour mandated training — which will educate law enforcement officers on the laws in the state’s election code that they might need to enforce at polling places — is an attempt to get ahead of another potential deluge of violence. The program, experts say, can potentially be used as a model for similar programs in other states. But at the same time its implementation in Georgia highlights a “tension” between a potentially increased law enforcement presence at polling places and the potential for inadvertent intimidation and the disenfranchisement of voters this fall.  

David Becker, the executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, who described the Georgia election officials and law enforcement partnership as “outstanding,” also told TPM that it’s right to be concerned about law enforcement inadvertently intimidating or threatening voters. 

“In my experience as a former DOJ lawyer in voting, we were always extremely careful and cognizant of places where law enforcement could be involved in a way that might inadvertently be intimidating or threatening the voters or interfere with the process,” said Becker. 

But other voting right experts are sounding the alarm a bit more aggressively. Chris Bruce, policy and advocacy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia told TPM that the implementation of this program not only gives law enforcement too little time to learn election law, it also has the potential to lead to voter intimidation, voter suppression, and low voter turnout.

The new program, which was approved earlier this month by the The Georgia Police Officer Training and Standards Council, will require law enforcement to participate in a one-hour training program dedicated to teaching laws that govern Georgia elections, including educating them on things like voter intimidation, interference with election officials, and interfering with voter equipment. 

“I thought it was important that law enforcement learn what laws they’re going to be expected to enforce if they get called to a polling place,” Chris Harvey Former Georgia election’s director and current deputy director of Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council told TPM, “which I think in some cases is more likely than it was maybe four years or six or eight years ago.”

Election experts agree the training is an important step in protecting both election officials and voters alike, but also cautioned that law enforcement presence at polling places could have the potential to intimidate voters.   

Harvey, who spearheaded this program and has himself been the victim of a violent death threat following the 2020 election, said that even though this “tension” between a potentially increased law enforcement presence and the intimidation of voters exists, the training does not require law enforcement to do anything at all. Rather, they are simply being taught what the laws are and to use their discretion to determine the most appropriate response. 

This tension is also the reason why the training program includes a section on civil rights concerns with law enforcement at polling places. The training encourages law enforcement to partner with election officials to determine the appropriate level of response by a law enforcement officer in certain scenarios, Harvey told TPM.

“There are any number of ways that a sheriff could exercise that authority to provide security, and we are not telling anybody, this is how you have to do it,” Harvey said.  

Neal Kelley, the former registrar of voters for Orange County, California and chair of The Committee for Safe and Secure Elections similarly explained to TPM that the fear of greater police intimidation at polling sites is “legitimate” — the key is really to avoid uniform presence and the brandishing of weapons at polling places, which the training program does not mandate. 

“At the end of the day, if this is done correctly and all you’re doing is raising awareness, you’re not requiring an arm presence in a polling place,” Kelley said. “You’re just raising awareness on issues that might crop up, so I think that’s sort of the difference in all of this.” 

Bruce cautions that issues could arise from  law enforcement officers being trained in election law — a realm that is not traditionally theirs. 

“Historically, police officers haven’t used to deal with voter intimidation, which has led to that,” said Bruce. “So if this is a new rise into that, then we have to talk about other issues that arise from it.”