Cambridge election workers, fearing for their safety in increasingly irrational times, will get more security this year, with City Manager Yi-An Huang recommending 32 police officers at a minimum “and any additional officers as required” to watch over voting sites for Nov. 7 municipal elections and a March 5 presidential primary.
Election Commission offices will also get a full-height, lockable door instead of the existing half-door and possibly cameras for the safety of staff. “We’re working toward securing the office,” said Tanya Ford, the commission’s executive director, during a discussion at Monday’s meeting of the City Council.
Recent incidents of unmanageable behavior and aggression around elections show the need, city councillor E. Denise Simmons said, expressing particular concern for Ford and other women and people of color.
“Oftentimes we have seen this where we’ve had some very aggressive individuals that I think threaten and are aggressive because the staff person they were speaking to is a woman,” Simmons said. “It’s unacceptable for anyone, but particularly a woman of color, to be berated and mistreated by people who feel that they have the right to talk to people any way they choose. And we know who we’re talking about.”
Despite being majority Democratic by a wide margin, Cambridge is part of a nationwide trend: It’s harder to find people to work elections. “Over the years we’ve lost staffing. This is a lot of work that we’re doing here. In past years we’ve had eight, and there’s three employees here now,” Ford said, “and that includes myself.”
In 2020, when it was clear supporters of Donald Trump were agitated in the run-up to an election in which their candidate lost, Cambridge police took extra steps to ensure security. Efforts included limiting time-off requests to increase staffing, assigning officers to monitor ballot drop boxes and polling locations, deploying bicycle patrols and implementing an emergency operations center for streamlined communication.
These steps were taken to address “nationwide concerns regarding interference in the ongoing federal elections and potential for civic unrest,” spokesperson Jeremy Warnick told The Harvard Crimson.
These plans for maintaining security during elections came to a pause when the Covid pandemic hit. Polling practices were created to adhere to social distancing regulations, but the need for crowd regulation and extensive in-person security was eliminated temporarily. With the public health emergency ended, concerns about safety at polling sites have revived.
“It is important for us to ensure that we have an ability to staff and have healthy levels of preparation for these elections,” Yi-An Huang said at the meeting, referring to work with Ford to assess the increased demands and concerns.
Upholding an explicit code of conduct for voters was also mentioned, but the key request by Ford was additional police to “preserve the order and to protect the election officers and supervisors from any interference with their duties and aid in enforcing the laws relating to elections.”
“We will do whatever it takes to get the work done,” Ford said. “We appreciate the support.”
Simmons remained concerned despite hearing that Huang and Ford had discussed election-worker safety several times. “I will bring a policy – I’ll stand alone on this if I have to – that the office is secure, the staff is supported and [polling locations are] adequately staffed,” Simmons said. “I want some results. I want to hear in writing that this has been taken care of.”
This post was updated to note the assignment of 32 police officers “and any additional officers as required to the city’s polling locations” in a city manager memo. The misplaced use of “additional” was introduced during editing.
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This seems like a reasonable response to the current national climate and the volatility of some individual potential voters that have been observed across the country, especially as we head into next years national elections.
Nobody walks their tax forms to an IRS facility, we mail them or file online. Works great. Voting in person is a weird anachronism.