Ga. Secretary of State’s Office launches new poll worker security tool

The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office is taking extra precautions to make sure the election and poll workers are safe and secure.

Monday marked the busiest first day of early voting that the state of Georgia has ever seen. More than 133,000 ballots were cast in-person across the state, smashing the previous record of 71,000 from the 2018 midterm elections.

Interim Deputy Georgia Secretary of State Gabriel Sterling sat down exclusively with Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Mark Winne to explain the new Poll Worker First Response System.

“We’ve launched a new basically tool to help with the protection of poll workers in this new kind of heightened threat environment that we’ve seen,” Sterling said.

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Sterling says the response system was put in place, in part, as a response to threats poll workers received during the 2020 elections, but also to give them a peace of mind.

“We are doing everything we can in Georgia to keep our poll workers safe, keep our voting locations safe to make sure there are no disruptions, so that voting can go through smoothly and safely for everybody,” he said.

If an issue arises, poll workers will get a five digit code, choose their county and get a form to fill out. Once they send in the form, an email will immediately go out to the state elections director, deputy elections director, the county elections director and local law enforcement, if the county has chosen that as an option.

“If you have the guy’s being a jerk, there’s one way to deal with it. If you got a guy who says, ‘I have a bomb and a gun,’ that’s another way you have to deal with it. So we’re gonna try to get as much transparency and information on the front end so the rumors don’t spin out of control,” Sterling explained.

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One of Fulton County’s poll managers, Dan Rauzi, says he will be checking out the new security.

“Our voters are wonderful. We’ve had marvelous voters. We love our voters, but at the same time, we have to make sure that everybody is secure, and that we have a secure environment for people to be able to exercise their right to vote, so I think it will be very helpful,” Rauzi said.

Sterling says that as of Tuesday, 81 of Georgia’s 159 counties had opted in.

“Why would anyone not opt in? Maybe they don’t wanna scare their poll workers, maybe they think, you know, ‘We’re fine,’ maybe they think we have a good enough relationship with our sheriff’s department who are already on site, we don’t need this. Counties run elections, we’re just providing these tools to them,” Sterling says.

Sterling told Winne that on election night in November 2020, vans with returns were followed and one had cars trying to cut it off as it was trying to get to a Fulton County facility.

A spokesperson also says that Fulton County has a whistleblower hotline for all Fulton County employees to report fraud or abuse that has been extended to poll workers.

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