(AFP) – When Akyn and Noah Beck took charge as county election directors in rural Georgia in the wake of the 2020 US presidential election, they knew they’d be stepping into a maelstrom of conspiracy theories spread by the man who lost that election, Donald Trump. Election integrity had conflagrated into a huge issue after then-incumbent Trump alleged widespread voter fraud in the southern US state. Georgia used to be a Republican stronghold, but it flipped to Trump’s rival Joe Biden in 2020. The Democrat took the state by just 11,779 votes. Trump and his allies spread unproven conspiracy theories about everything from voting machines to mail-in ballots in the state, alleging that vast amounts of votes had not been counted.
Georgia recounted that election by hand statewide, and the results certified its original count. Trump went on to face criminal racketeering charges over his attempts to overturn the election result. (The charges were dropped after he was re-elected in 2024.) Floyd County, where Akyn took over as elections director in 2022, was one of the very few places where errors had occurred. More than 2,500 ballots had been misplaced in the original count, but were found while doing the recount. The discrepancy did not affect the final result, but it did pour fuel on the fire of the conspiracy theories. “Once trust is lost, it’s very hard to regain,” Akyn told AFP at her office in the town of Rome as co-workers prepared for the November 3 midterm elections that will decide control of the United States Congress. “Everyone’s looking for something to blame,” she said.
The results can be dangerous: In the wake of the 2020 election, election officials in Georgia were frequently threatened by Trump supporters. Even though Akyn had taken over after the crisis, she found herself in the crosshairs of that anger. “It’s not victimless,” she said of the hate directed at her office. “We’re mothers, we’re sisters, we’re daughters, we’re somebody’s family member, and a lot of times there’s a humanity that’s removed from our position.”
– **Rebuilding trust**
Many election workers in Georgia quit after the 2020 election. And Akyn was not alone in stepping into that fire. About 20 miles south, in Cedartown, her husband Noah decided to come back to his hometown to help right the ship. “Sometimes it wasn’t safe, and sometimes the way that those engaged citizens were interacting with these public servants wasn’t appropriate,” Noah told AFP at the small three-room Polk County Election Office tucked away at the back of a former bank building.
Still, both Becks were determined to rebuild that trust and to engage with new election laws that brought in sweeping changes. The laws narrowed the window for absentee ballots, tightened voter ID requirements and vastly expanded the scope of challenges for voter eligibility — all steps that rights groups allege were aimed at disenfranchising working-class voters. Noah said he approached his work from a committed non-partisan lens: It was not for him to question the legal changes, only to implement them in a way that satisfied voters.
Still, there is a “pendulum” between election security and voter access, he said. “When we’re tinkering with these laws, ultimately, what everything will boil down to typically is that question: Does this restrict voter access but increase election security?” Akyn agreed, pointing to how the recent changes had increased requirements on some voters, potentially putting up barriers to voting. “Any barriers of entry, people will decide they’re not going to cast their ballot,” she said, adding that such barriers disproportionately impact working-class voters who may not have the time or resources to address challenges.
Both officials, for example, said that changes to how absentee ballot dropboxes worked had made the tool functionally “pointless” or “defunct” after the law required them to be placed inside election offices and to only be available during working hours. The new laws in Georgia also brought about a slew of procedural changes to the way in which ballots were handled, counted, and recounted, all of which required county officials to have to build new systems — usually with no additional resources. At the Polk County office, there are two full-time employees, serving roughly 30,000 voters. Noah says the changes did bring “logistical strain” with some unfunded mandates — including the hand recounts and the large increase in voter challenges.
Akyn, whose office serves roughly 70,000 voters, said that no matter what the challenges, she was determined to deliver fair elections in this pocket of rural Georgia. “I want my kids to say, ‘Mom worked really hard for something very important,’ because it is very important. It’s the cornerstone of our country,” she said.
– Asad HASHIM
© 2024 AFP
