A county in battleground Nevada has installed panic buttons in all voting sites for the first time ever in case election workers are threatened with violence this year, according to a report.
“We’ve stepped up our security measures,” Washoe County spokesperson Bethany Drysdale told the Reno Gazette Journal.
“If a vote center manager feels there’s an imminent threat, they can press the panic button,” she said.
Washoe County security administrator Ben West said poll workers are trained to call 911, but if they are unable to for any reason they can quickly hit the panic buttons, the newspaper reported.
The buttons are connected to a monitoring center that would alert the sheriff’s deputies or police in Reno or Sparks.
“Generally, they are well tuned in to where all of our locations are and the physical layout of those locations,” Drysdale said of the local law enforcement departments. “So if they had to respond to something, they already kind of know what they’re walking into.”
The Nevada Legislature last year increased penalties for interfering with election officials.
“It’s now a felony to harass election workers, and I hope that’s a deterrent as well, that it might make somebody think twice before trying to harass an election worker,” Drysdale said.
West said there has only been one altercation to date that required police since early voting began last month, involving someone angered over not being allowed to wear campaign clothing at a voting center.
Nevada has outlawed “electioneering,” wearing a shirt or hat for or against a particular candidate within 100 feet of where people vote, the outlet said.
Late last month vice presidential candidate JD Vance hailed as a “patriot” a female voter at an early polling station who reportedly screamed “d–khead” at a poll worker and ripped off her Trump T-shirt when she was informed the shirt was not allowed.
Another Trump voter (from Texas) was arrested last month after law enforcement authorities said he punched a poll worker who told him to take off his MAGA hat because it violated the rules. Jesse Lutzenberger, 63, has been charged with injury to an elderly person, according to an incident report from the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office.
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