U.S. Election Officials Face Their Biggest Threat Yet -- Jail Time

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-19/jail-threat-dangles-over-election-officials-in-new-gop-vote-laws

No paywall
https://archive.ph/jKZe3

Over the last two years, local elections officials across the U.S. have faced a deadly pandemic, shortages of funding and workers, false claims of election fraud and even death threats.
Now they could face prison, too.

Under a spate of laws proposed or passed in at least 10 states, elections administrators could see criminal charges and penalties that include thousands of dollars in fines or even prison time for technical infractions of election statutes.

In Arizona, a new law makes it a felony, punishable by up to 2 1/2 years in prison, followed by loss of voting rights or gun ownership, for an elections official to send a mail-in ballot to any voter who has not requested one. It’s now a felony in Kentucky, with a possible five-year prison term, for an official to accept a donation or “anything of value” to assist with an election. In Florida, elections officials could face up to $25,000 in fines if they leave a ballot drop box unsupervised.

Broad new laws in Iowa and Texas make it a felony, with prison terms of up to five years in Iowa and up to two years in Texas, for elections officials who fail to follow a number of election procedures, while similar bills are pending in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma and South Carolina.

The laws are part of a broader effort to crack down on alleged voter fraud by Republican lawmakers who often echo former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. No one has yet been prosecuted under these new laws, but election activity will ramp up closer to November.

*snip*