What’s at Stake for Election Workers

Poll workers serve an essential, if usually uncelebrated, role in American democracy. Organizing and tabulating is the basic business of elections. Or, it was until 2020.

When then-President Trump refused to accept his loss and spread falsehoods about a stolen election, vote-counters were among the first people to face blowback. Poll workers endured combative protesters, threats, and harassment while completing their work. In the two years since, the Big Lie has only grown more central to the Republican brand. In next week’s election, the majority of Americans will see an election-denier on their ballot.

With America’s voting system facing a crucial pressure test, Atlantic staff writers Mark Leibovich and Tim Alberta spoke on the podcast Radio Atlantic to better understand the stakes for the 2022 midterm elections.

Joining them is Chris Thomas, an election administrator who spent nearly four decades leading the elections division in the office of Michigan’s secretary of state. He recounted his experience running Detroit’s 2020 process amid protests and conspiracy theories, and offers a warning about the “downward spiral” that may already be underway.

Listen to their conversation here:

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The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Mark Leibovich: This is Radio Atlantic. I’m Mark Leibovich, a staff writer at The Atlantic, where I cover politics. And with me is my colleague Tim Alberta, who is also a staff writer at The Atlantic. Tim, how are you doing?

Tim Alberta: Mark, I am okay. How are you?

Leibovich: Good. Situate yourself in this time-space continuum. You are sitting in Michigan, I believe.

Alberta: That’s correct. The center of the political universe.

Leibovich: Well, the 2022 midterms are only days away. But for this episode, we’re gonna focus on the underappreciated part of every election, which is the election administrators that run them.

This is an area that Tim has done some extremely great reporting and deep dives into, particularly in Michigan, which is not only a hotly contested swing state, but also a focal point of where the country is and the tipping points that are affecting a lot of elections.

So what I would ask off the top, Tim, is—election workers. This is usually kind of the plumbing of elections, [and] we as political reporters tend to focus on the campaigns themselves. What was it that got you interested in election workers themselves and wanting to talk to them and learn more about them?

Alberta: Election-administration folks are a little bit like offensive linemen. You don’t really notice them until they do something wrong. And oftentimes, when they do something wrong, there are big and devastating consequences.

So here we are looking ahead to the midterms next week, and we’re already seeing accusations of voter fraud and enormous pressure being put on the system.