Georgia County Installs ‘Panic Buttons’ For Poll Workers As Concerns Grow Over New Rules

Against the backdrop of the Georgia State Election Board implementing new rules that have the potential to sow seeds of doubt in the state’s election system, a Georgia county — that’s already been plagued by dangerous election misinformation and threats since 2020 — recently approved the implementation of “panic buttons” to protect poll workers. 

The Cobb County director of elections and director of the Public Services Agency, citing a “severe increase in concern for election worker safety,” requested funds for the new security measures, which were approved by the Board of Commissioners earlier this month.

These panic buttons are not directly related to the concerning rule changes that the Georgia State Election Board approved this month, which both have the potential to delay election certification. But the rule changes have the potential to create distrust in the election system and set up election deniers to push baseless voter fraud claims in November, thereby increasing the risk for poll workers in the fall, experts tell TPM. 

“All of these kinds of things are being done to try and further protect election officials in light of the threat environment, which has absolutely been turbocharged by false impressions about the integrity of U.S. elections,” David Levine, election integrity consultant explained in an interview with TPM. “And these rules in Georgia are just two examples of this.”

The need for panic buttons is reflective of the current threat environment that election workers find themselves in. Neal Kelley, the former registrar of voters for Orange County, California and chair of The Committee for Safe and Secure Elections doesn’t think the implementation of these panic buttons is extreme, but rather, a necessary step to protect election workers. 

“We can only tolerate so much before you do have to start taking these kinds of measures,” he said. “I just think, again, it’s a product of what the environment we’re in right now.”

Although the buttons aren’t being installed in response to a specific known threat, Cobb County, Georgia has been ground zero for election misinformation for the last several years.

“I think it’s the general preparedness and some of the fear that’s been stoked about everything that’s being said about elections and all the concern that is being shared from all sides,” said Chris Harvery, former Georgia election’s director and current deputy director of Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council.

The Cobb County board approved $47,250 for around 200 devices that are being sold by Runbeck Election Services, according to reporting from NBC News. 

The buttons themselves are unobtrusive, Harvey said, and can be worn with a lanyard. He described the device as being “almost like a card” which can be displayed behind a regular identification card on a lanyard. The card has a little red button on it that, if activated, will send a signal using cellphone data to a designated person, who on election day will be situated at the police department.

The approval of these buttons occurred against the backdrop of Georgia’s MAGA-dominated state election board approving two new rules this month that have the potential to breed distrust and confusion about election administration in the state.  As we saw in the aftermath of the 2020 election, public distrust in the election system increases the potential for threats against election workers. 

One of these rules gives the Georgia Election Board the authority to not certify election results until a “reasonable inquiry” into any discrepancies in the voting process at the county level has been conducted. As TPM has previously reported, the rule is vague and does not explain what constitutes a “reasonable inquiry.”

And the second rule, gives election board members power “to examine all election-related documentation before certifying the results.” This same rule also dictates that if there is a discrepancy between the ballot count and the number of voters, the board must investigate the discrepancy before the election can be certified. 

But both of these rules give election deniers more power to delay certification based on false allegations of fraud. Nikhel Sus, deputy chief counsel at the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, described these efforts as being about “generally sowing distrust and undermining public perceptions of the validity of the election in particular states, in particular counties, to serve as a pretext for disputing the results down the line.”

Of particular concern is the fact that these rules have the potential to change how workers do their jobs, Levine said. And if these changes make it harder for election workers to do their jobs, leading to more mistakes, that can also spark an increase in threats and violence. 

“We know that when election officials have made mistakes that they’ve received threats,” he said.

As it stands now, there are still some questions left unanswered about what exactly constitutes a “red button emergency,” Harvey explained.

“You’ve got 150 some polling places, so you’re going to have 150 some places where what the person in this polling place considers a red button emergency may not be the same as this place,” he said.