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According to a recent poll, abuse, stalking and threats are rife leading up to the US election this week. Consequently, election workers are increasingly likely to quit their jobs. In a recent poll from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, more than a third of surveyed local election officials said they’d experienced threats, harassment or abuse related to their jobs.

This represents an 8 per cent increase on the 2023 poll numbers, with election officials reporting that the most common means of receiving these threats was in person or via the phone.

Of those election workers in the US who were serving in this year’s election, a high number said they’d likely quit before the 2026 election cycle.

Representing a 10 per cent increase on 2023, 27 percent of respondents said they knew one or two local election officials who have resigned over concerns about their well-being. Nearly a quarter of local election officials are working their first presidential election in 2024, and 20 percent said they’re unlikely to continue serving in the 2026 midterms.

The claims by former President, and Republican candidate Donald Trump that the election was “stolen” from him in 2020 have led to violent riots and an increasingly fractious, distrustful landscape, in which claims of interference by election workers have plagued Trump’s rhetoric. In the wake of the 2020 mayhem, the introduction of the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 updated many of the historic procedures from the former Electoral Count Act of 1887. This election will be the stress test of its efficacy at streamlining legal disputes over vote count legitimacy.

Australia has a significantly less contentious, dangerous landscape but democracy depends upon the real and perceived safety and security of elections. LSJ spoke to Dr Jill Sheppard, senior lecturer in the School of Politics and International Relations at ANU to explore what penalties apply to those making threats or stalking election staff, whether these are substantial enough to deter others from doing so, and the consequential impacts of a dangerous, risky environment on democratic functions happening securely and reliably.

AEC supported amendments to criminal code this year

On 9 July 2024, the Criminal Code Amendment (Protecting Commonwealth Frontline Workers) Act 2024 amended the Commonwealth Criminal Code 1995 to deter harmful conduct against Commonwealth workers that deal directly with the public. The AEC’s submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee supported the amendments and the critical need for AEC staff, particularly those involved in public-facing roles during electoral events, to be recognised as Commonwealth frontline workers.

Sheppard says, “The frontline Commonwealth worker protections that were strengthened earlier this year explicitly include election workers, which is an interesting framing: election workers are now being discussed in the same way, and as requiring the same protections, as Centrelink and other government service provider staff. The increased penalties for harming or threatening to harm frontline staff are not huge, but the signal that election staff need protecting is significant.”

Jess Lilley, media advisor for the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) says, “We have around 100,000 temporary staff across the country on election day. These people are parents, grandparents, friends and family – members of your community, delivering democracy. We always remind voters of Australia’s proud history of free, fair, civil and peaceful elections and referendums and we know that the vast majority of Australians interact with the electoral process in good faith which we are very lucky for.”

“We take the safety of our staff and voters very seriously. Our temporary staff are there to administer the electoral process inside the venue – they are not security officers or police officers. If the AEC receives or sees information about potential protest style activity, we work with people to provide awareness and, if needed, additional measures of safety. This includes the AEC’s connection with state and territory police forces. As with other areas of society, if there is behaviour that merits police intervention, we’d encourage people to contact police.”

If a temporary election staff member receives threats or abuse from members of the public, Lilley says, “we take appropriate steps for the safety of the individual/s first and foremost and then document the incident after the fact. However, these instances are quite rare in Australian elections and something we shouldn’t take for granted.”

Australian laws address election offences

Under Australian law, there are multiple criminal offences specific to the election process. These are clarified in Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009 (Cth), in which it is a criminal offence for a person to fail to comply with a direction from an electoral official in accordance with section 193(1) and (section 193(2). It is also a criminal offence to hinder or obstruct an electoral official in the performance of their functions or another person complying with a direction of an electoral official.

Conviction of an election offence can result in a penalty of up to 100 penalty units, which equates to $31,300 based on present value of a penalty unit ($313), and if the person holds an office, they will lose that position 28 days following their conviction.

In 2022, former AFL player Tony Liberatore assaulted a Victorian election worker after she told Liberatore he was too late to vote. He twice pushed the pre-poll election worker after arriving five minutes later than the cut-off time, and was asked to return the following day. Refusing to heed her, he attempted to push her aside and attend the booth. To avoid inflaming the situation, the election worker allowed Liberatore to vote but informed him she’d be calling the police.

In 2023, Liberatore appeared in court to admit he assaulted the worker, claiming “I’m standing in line and she’s walked over her with her accent and said no”. His lawyer claimed that owing to Liberatore’s discharge from hospital following surgery for his broken ankle hours earlier, his behaviour towards the official was “out of character.”

Magistrate Robert Kumar placed Liberatore on diversion, ordering him to be of good behaviour for three months and pay $1000 to the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Dr Sheppard says, “There are no other famous cases as yet, but the AEC has repeatedly mentioned, at JSCEM and in media, that harassment and filming is on the rise. The AEC has to thread the needle between potentially making celebrities of election antagonists and not pretending that these events aren’t taking place and be accused of not being transparent.”

She adds, “The 2022 federal election was the first time that the AEC has expressed serious alarm at how their staff are treated on election day and at pre-polling. There is only one widely known case of actual assault so far, but increased cases of staff being harassed, filmed and posted online, and effectively bullied on the job. The AEC prefers ‘pre-emptive strikes’ over post hoc course corrections, and they clearly see this as a live threat to their election operations.”

All employees deserve to be free of harassment at work, but the threat to Australian democracy does make election workers a special case.

Dr Sheppard says, “We’re used to elections that run seamlessly here, but they are only possible because the AEC is able to recruit temporary staff. The AEC mobilises a workforce of up to 100,000 at each federal election, and if staff and potential staff don’t believe that they are being adequately protected at work, raising that kind of temporary workforce becomes even more difficult.”

She reflects that “We don’t have nearly the levels of polarisation here as in the US, but there is a small element who are fundamentally distrustful of government, democratic institutions, and the AEC. For the very large majority of Australians though – upwards of 90 percent per the last Australian Public Service Commission survey of trust in public service agencies – the AEC is totally trusted and respected. There really is no sign of that eroding, no matter how loud the very small fringe become.”

Voters put faith in institutions more than the major parties

Dr Sheppard says, “Support for the two major parties is certainly in decline, but that hasn’t yet corresponded to declining support for the institutions that underpin our democracy. That’s perhaps a precarious position, where voters like the institutions but not the personalities in those institutions. The AEC is at the forefront of maintaining the status quo on this front, and their task of running largely flawless, transparent, and accessible elections is increasingly difficult. They are perhaps victims of their own success: we expect, and receive, seamless elections, and anything short of that might feel like failure.”

Just this month, The United States Studies Centre republished an AFR feature entitled “How Australia can fix America’s broken election system.”

Ultimately, it concluded that ballots enabling, perhaps even encouraging, voters to see minor parties as an equally good choice relative to major parties, who can benefit through winning the preferences of minor party candidates, “while penalising more extremist elements”.

However much Australians eye-roll about elections, the fact we can conduct them safely should not be taken for granted. The alternative is playing out in the US in real time.