For Ethan Compton, the election supervisor in Irwin County, Ga., the last few years have brought a series of man-made and natural hazards.
Real hurricanes. A hailstorm of open-records requests. Conspiracy theories that settle in like summertime humidity. A crush of new laws and regulations often backed by the drivers of those conspiracy theories, and the thrumming distrust of some of the voters he serves.
And then, to top it all off, there was the Sweet Potato Festival Parade.
Last weekend, I drove to Ocilla, a town of about 3,000 surrounded by rich farmland that serves as the county seat. I was hoping for a glimpse of what it’s like to run an election in 2024. When I arrived, I found Compton speaking animatedly to a law enforcement officer who had, in advance of the parade, just closed the block in front of the building where early voting was to take place.
Compton had asked the officer if he would show drivers a detour to his building. “At first, he had said, ‘Oh no, that’s not my job,’” said Compton, who worried that voters might not know how to get into his building . “I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to have to drop the D.O.J. on them.’”
The officer quickly changed his mind. The crisis was averted. It was a small thing — a one-block detour for a celebration of a root vegetable. But to Compton, who is trying not just to pull off an election but also to restore voters’ overall faith in the system he runs, everything matters.
“It has been a steady effort,” he told me, “of trying to build trust again in elections since 2020.”
One stressor after another
Compton is 35, with a full beard and a soft but exacting lilt. He never really planned on becoming an elections official. He had spent his career repairing computers, and doing quality assurance testing on surgical instruments — a line of work that taught him, he said, “that even the smallest mistakes could endanger people.”
After he moved to rural south Georgia from East Tennessee, he got a job in early 2020 as a technician working on Dominion voting machines, which led him to Irwin County. He began working for the county elections department the following year. He’s not really sure what it’s like to administer an election in a time without election denialism and disinformation, because he never has.
Instead, it’s been one stressor after another. A hand recount in December 2020 caused an officewide Covid outbreak. After then-President Donald Trump and his allies began spreading false claims about election fraud in Georgia, turnout in the January 2021 runoff election plummeted, and Compton worried voters’ trust was fast eroding — even in a county like this, where Trump had won 75 percent of the vote. The next day was Jan. 6, 2021, and the local sheriff pre-emptively stationed a deputy across from Compton’s house.
Compton hasn’t faced the same tide of harassment and threats as others in his profession, though he doesn’t feel quite safe, either. When the elections board moved to its current location, across the street from what used to be the grocery store, it added layers of alarms, thickened the walls, and considered adding bulletproof glass.
“Seeing the comments, the vitriol online, it has made me have to look over my shoulder a lot more,” he said.
There are also the sarcastic comments, like when voters cast their ballot but suggest it won’t count. The voters who wanted him to spend hours addressing all of their concerns — which he did. There was the flurry of open-records requests, pushed by right-wing activists in spring 2022 — “I had more open records requests about the results than I had voters,” Compton said — and the time a group of activists showed up during a special election in 2023, demanding to take pictures inside while voting was occurring.
“They act like they know the law in order to intimidate people that do not understand it fully,” Compton said. “So you have to be well-versed on thousands of pages of law as well as public relations, auditing, cybersecurity.”
Compton said he was constantly thinking about how to be transparent and how to stop conspiracy theories from taking root. Sometimes it feels like the conspiracy theorists are winning. Distrust keeps people away from the ballot box — and he takes that personally.
“It’s silencing people’s votes,” he said. “If people aren’t taking part, then I’m not doing enough of a good job.”
On permanent alert
Compton thinks he’s making progress on rebuilding voters’ faith. More than 2,650 early votes have already been cast in person — impressive turnout for a county with only 6,600 registered voters.
When I visited on Saturday, voters trickled into a windowless room that the assistant supervisor, Evelyn Romans, had livened up with shockingly healthy potted plants decorated with patriotic gnomes. In the corner of the room stood a dropbox.
Every hour, one poll worker cross-checked the number of voters against the number of ballots made and cast — essentially doing an audit in real time. Compton seemed on permanent alert, watching for people who might need help — or who might inadvertently be breaking a rule. He told a man that his “Raised by Reagan” T-shirt was too political to wear into the voting booth, and somberly explained to an elderly woman that she would not be allowed to vote because she hadn’t brought a photo ID.
In some ways, it was hard to imagine distrust flourishing in a close-knit place like this, where some of the poll workers recognized voters, and people chatted idly about hurricane cleanup or the Sweet Potato Festival. But it does. Lately, the big concern has been the baseless rumor that machines are switching people’s votes.
Compton feels sure that time and communication are the antidotes to disinformation. What he does not know, though, is what the November election and its aftermath will bring to his community.
“Do I have to start all over again on the four-year cycle?” he wondered. “Or is this a step forward?”
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The down-ballot battles with big policy implications
Arizona. Michigan. Pennsylvania. No, I’m not talking about swing states. I’m talking about states where the two parties are battling for control of state legislatures. The nation’s statehouses play a huge role in shaping policy, so these races really matter. My colleague David Chen has this guide to the four kinds of battles we’ll see next Tuesday.
1. States where Republicans hold both chambers
In Arizona, Republicans hold a 16-14 edge in the Senate, and 32-28 in the House, and both chambers are seen as tossups. Democrats are highlighting public education, housing affordability and, above all, abortion rights — which is also the subject of a ballot measure. Republicans are emphasizing the economy, the border and immigration — another hot-button initiative.
In New Hampshire, Republicans have clung to a slim state government trifecta — control of the governor’s office and both legislative chambers — for the last four years. But this year, against the backdrop of a highly competitive governor’s race, Democrats are bullish about their chances to reclaim the House, which, with 400 members, is the largest state legislative body in the country.
2. States where Democrats want to protect new trifectas
Democrats narrowly won trifectas in four states after the 2022 midterms, and parlayed that power into laws related to abortion, labor, voting rights and more. Now their House majorities in two of those states are rated as too close to call: Michigan and Minnesota.
The Michigan House was deadlocked at 54-54 this year after a couple of Democratic representatives resigned to serve as mayors. Legislation basically ground to a halt until Democrats regained their advantage in April.
In Minnesota, Democrats have a 68-64 edge in the House, with two vacancies, after shepherding a sweeping agenda that helped make Gov. Tim Walz a progressive star. A special Senate election will determine the balance of power in that chamber, which is tied.
3. The state with a divided Legislature
In 2022, Democrats in Pennsylvania captured the state House of Representatives, winning some races by just a few hundred votes, after more than a decade out of power. They’ve prevailed in five special elections since to preserve their one-vote majority.
If Republicans can regain power in the House — and retain the Senate — they hope to restrict abortion access and tighten voter ID requirements, among other policy goals.
4. The state where new maps could shift control
Pennsylvania Democrats benefited from redrawn district lines in 2022. After the state Supreme Court threw out Wisconsin’s gerrymandered legislative maps, Democrats now have an opportunity to win the Assembly for the first time in more than a decade.
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