It’s the last weekend before the presidential election. Both candidates are increasing their trips to key states. But these elections are far from taking place without tensions, particularly around accusations of electoral fraud on the part of supporters of Donald Trump who did not accept Joe Biden’s victory. Over the past four years, threats against electoral assessors and officials have increased, placing a lot of tension on them. Reporting from Cumming, Georgia.
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Anita Tucker has never seen such security measures. The Democrat is on the Forsyth County Election Board and must ensure smooth running of the ballot. “ We had online workshops with exercises where polling station workers could learn and see different scenarios, like a person coming with a weapon or someone setting something on fire. What we never had to do before », she tells Edward Maille, our special correspondent in Cumming.
Remember that investigations have been opened in recent days after the burning of several ballot boxes in the states of Washington and Oregon and in Arizona, on the Pacific coast. Hundreds of ballots were destroyed. According to local authorities, these fires are linked and intentional in the first two states.
Anita Tucker has visited the polling stations in recent weeks in a difficult climate for the assessors: “ There is a lot more stress than usual. There are more voters coming forward to complain that the voting machines are rigged. »
And a polling station employee, won over to the Trumpist rhetoric of the stolen election, even goes so far as to publish false information on social networks: “ He published things like “The voting machines don’t work”, fueling distrust. Honestly, it looks like they’re getting ready: if Trump doesn’t win, they’ll be able to say that in Forsyth County those machines didn’t work. »
According to a survey of theAtlanta Journal-Constitution at the end of October nearly a third of voters in Georgia said “ not so confident ” Or ” not at all confident » that the elections will be held in a safe and fair manner.
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