Democracy Decoded: Season 4, Episode 1 Transcript

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Janice Winfrey: State and local officials from both parties, poll workers and election staff were and still find ourselves under attack.

Simone Leeper: This is Janice Winfrey, the City Clerk of Detroit, Michigan, who is among a handful of civil servants who testified to congressional lawmakers following the 2020 election. Many election officials, including Janice, experienced harassment just for doing their jobs.

Janice Winfrey: Threats were made against me, my staff and Detroit poll workers by phone, email, and in person such as when they counted the absentee ballots on Election Day.

Adrian Fontes: Armed protesters gathered outside of the Maricopa County Election Center demanding that we count all of the ballots. Ironically, that's exactly what we were doing.

Simone Leeper: And this is Adrian Fontes, currently Arizona's Secretary of State. In 2020, he held the office of recorder in Maricopa County, the biggest single battleground voting jurisdiction in America.

Adrian Fontes: The misinformation and disinformation that had built to fever pitch motivated some of these people to corner one of my staff members outside the door, forcing what was effectively a rescue by law enforcement officers and other staff members

Simone Leeper: Like Janice, he also testified about threats he and his staff witnessed after partisan politicians made false claims about who won the presidential election.

I'm Simone Leeper and this is Democracy Decoded, a podcast where we examine our government and discuss innovative ideas that could lead to a stronger, more transparent, accountable, and inclusive democracy. I work for a nonpartisan organization called Campaign Legal Center. CLC advocates for every eligible voter in America to be able to meaningfully participate in the democratic process. I'm an attorney on CLC's redistricting team representing voters in court across the country who want our democracy to be better and more representative.

Today, I'd like to officially welcome you to season four of the podcast and it's a special one, the first season we produced during a presidential election, so this time we're looking squarely at elections. We're taking a deep dive into the tried and tested systems and some of the newly updated laws that ensure our elections are safe, secure, and accurate no matter what challenges they face.

In this episode, we're exploring the role of election workers. We'll learn what those workers mean to the communities where they work, and we'll look at how election workers have faced intimidation and harassment simply for doing their jobs. The majority of election workers are ready to take on the typical challenges they might face on Election Day. They plan and prepare for this moment after all, and the processes they help carry out have been practiced and refined across thousands of elections over decades and decades, but in recent years, those workers have faced threats and harassment from bad actors who sow distrust in the electoral process for their own political gain.

Ruby Freeman: My name is Ruby Freeman. I could have never imagined the events that followed the presidential election 2020.

Simone Leeper: Ruby was a temporary election worker in Fulton County, Georgia, who was harassed when that state came down to the wire with a deciding margin of fewer than 12,000 votes out of 5 million cast. Partisan politicians, including then President Donald Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, promoted false claims about the way Ruby carried out the vote count. In a deposition play during a house committee hearing, Ruby testified that the experience scarred her.

Ruby Freeman: I won't even introduce myself by my name anymore. I get nervous when I bump into someone I know in the grocery store who says my name. I'm worried about who's listening.

Rusty Bowers: They have had video panel trucks with videos of me proclaiming me to be a corrupt politician and blaring loudspeakers in my neighborhood.

Simone Leeper: Rusty Bowers, a Republican lawmaker who was then the speaker of the Arizona House, testified to the harassment he and his family endured after the 2020 election. Republicans like Rusty faced pressure to ensure that Arizona cast its electoral votes for Trump despite Biden's clear win. Rusty refused to put his thumb on the scale and paid a price. Rusty ultimately lost his race in the 2022 legislative primary, which many attributed to his resistance to overturning the election.

Janice Winfrey: We just want to uphold democracy.

Simone Leeper: Janice Winfrey again.

Janice Winfrey: We just want to ensure that everyone votes and it's unfair. It's unfair that we're attacked for doing our job. I feel afraid.

Simone Leeper:  Listening to these accounts, I'm struck by how badly the situation deteriorated in 2020. The United States is the oldest continuously functioning democracy on earth. We're resilient and it's clear the source of that resilience is the frontline workers who make our elections run despite the hardships.

Administering elections has never been a particularly high profile job. It certainly isn't glamorous, but until 2020, it was rarely dangerous. Since then, people who administer elections have been retiring or quitting at the highest rate in decades. In many locations though the job itself hasn't fundamentally changed. I wanted to know more about what attracts people to become poll workers despite the stormy political climate so we reached out to poll workers in a battleground state, Pennsylvania to ask them why this job and why now?

Steve Reisinger: When I was growing up, my mother had multiple jobs, did various things, and one of the things that was a big impact on me was regardless of how many jobs she was working or what she was doing, she volunteered at the polls every year.

Simone Leeper: That's Steve Reisinger. He owns a construction company in Westchester, a small town an hour west of Philadelphia. He's also a poll worker, one of the people who helps the voters of Chester County cast their ballots.

Steve Reisinger: That was something that I thought was very admirable and realized the importance of volunteerism, the importance of civic duty, having served in the Marine Corps and recognizing that definitely it's a place of service that is, I think, one of my love languages in general. I like doing things for people. It's fun. It brings joy.

Kristina Reisinger: I am an educator, so I've been at my school for, this is technically my 30th summer at this school. Students call me a teacher of teachers, so when I come into the classroom, they know that I'm a teacher, but I'm also there to help their teachers.

Simone Leeper: And that's Kristina Reisinger who's married to Steve. Like Steve, she grew up in Westchester, went to the local high school, settled down there, and she's also recently gotten into working at the polls during local elections. Between the two of them, they've worked three elections and counting. They take their job very seriously because they take service and the common good seriously.

Kristina Reisinger: People who get into this, I think they have a heart for civic responsibility, civic duty. I feel like once someone volunteers to do this, it's because they believe in it.

Steve Reisinger: I work for our family construction business. It's been around 63 years. I'm a third generation owner. I started as an apprentice and then carpenter and then got the opportunity to purchase the company from my uncle almost seven years ago and have been running the company since then.

Kristina Reisinger: We met at a bar playing pool. I beat him.

Steve Reisinger: She hustled me.

Simone Leeper: Like her husband, Kristina has spent nearly her entire adult life in Westchester and she wouldn't have it any other way.

Kristina Reisinger: When we got married, buying a home in or close to the borough of Westchester was really important to us. I love Chester County. We are so close to so many things, whether it's the ocean or the mountains or the city or the country, and it's just beautiful and historic.

Simone Leeper: They both say they were intrigued by the idea of becoming poll workers because of the fellowship they felt when they went to their polling place. The workers there made them feel like they were part of a community. It made them want to give back.

Steve Reisinger: I go into vote every opportunity we have and going in, many of the people that work at our poll, they live in our neighborhood, so we'd go in and I'd stay there for 15 minutes and jibber jabber with them just about the neighborhood or what's going on or just what's going on in their lives, and while I'd be in there talking to them, then other neighbors would be coming in or friends that we know that live in other neighborhoods. It was a lot of fun to do it, so I volunteered.

Kristina Reisinger: He got in there ahead of me and he's like, "Come on, let's do it together." Our daughter is going away to college in a couple weeks, and I was like, this is it. It's time for me to get in there.

Simone Leeper: This is an opportune moment to mention like so many families in America, Kristina and Steve don't share a political affiliation. When they do talk politics together, they do so with empathy and a light touch.

Steve Reisinger: I like to think of myself as more conservative.

Kristina Reisinger: There's no one party that defines me. I don't really identify as anything except maybe leaning rogue and liberal. We're both coming from very unique places and we do trust each other's expertise. I trust him to tell me about how certain things are affecting small businesses, local businesses, and he trusts my expertise when I share with him things that are happening in education that he wouldn't know about.

Steve Reisinger: We have a rule in our house that we don't talk about politics, finances, or anything after nine o'clock, 9:30. 9:30 is the big number for us.

Simone Leeper: But politics aren't what brought them to work on elections. They got into this line of service because when they went to vote, they saw something other than a partisan power struggle at play. They saw friends.

Steve Reisinger: What's really nice is the team that we work with and the judge that we have in there has been doing it for so long. They know the system. They know the process so well.

Kristina Reisinger: The business at hand is very systematized. It's very clear, they're just like NASA, there's planned redundancies for everything. Spoiled ballot has to be documented and triplicated and signed and witnessed, and there's just so many layers to that, but every time I've asked a question of a human, I get a human response. The people who are at the election, at the polls, they're your neighbors.

Simone Leeper: Kristina and Steve agree that it's all about the people, not just technical and procedures.

Kristina Reisinger: The human component made the day for me. There was a man who came in and he walked right up to the person I was partnering with, who by the way, she did not need to be told the names of hardly anybody who walked through that door, and he always goes to her because she always has this portion of the alphabet, and so they had a whole conversation before he signed to the ledger to vote. The human touch of neighbor to neighbor connecting was an unlooked for beauty in that day.

Steve Reisinger: People in relationships are the most important thing in life. It's all about our relationships and getting involved in your community, it's such a gratifying experience.

Kristina Reisinger: I believe in giving back to our community. I can't necessarily make a difference across all of America. I can make a difference in my local area. It's important to really put yourself out there and be there for people because you'll find that you grow as a result of it. It's like the thing that keeps giving back to you in ways that you never expected.

Simone Leeper: That was Kristina Reisinger and her husband Steve, explaining why they became poll workers in their hometown in eastern Pennsylvania.

Our elections are made possible by millions of regular citizens just like them who service poll workers all across our country. You can become a poll worker too if you're eligible under your state's laws. It's a great way to learn more about the electoral process in your own community.

As we mentioned at the start of this episode, election workers have faced increasing numbers of threats and attacks in recent years. That's why especially amidst the chaos of a close election, there have to be protections. Steve and Kristina deserve safety on the job. Janice Winfrey, Ruby Freeman, Adrian Fontes and Rusty Bowers all deserve peace of mind when they're at the office or walking down the street.

At CLC, my colleague, Kelsey Rogers has been working with state lawmakers and election officials across the country to chart a path forward through the challenges of the past four years.

Kelsey Rogers: Anecdotally in our discussions with election officials and with administrators, election workers really across the political spectrum across the country, there is a major undercurrent of concern.

Simone Leeper: Kelsey is CLC's Senior Manager for State Advocacy.

Kelsey Rogers: It's really taken a toll on the dedicated professionals who help to accurately and fairly administer the elections. CLC has really been dedicated to helping to support states as they pass and implement laws to protect election workers from these harmful threats and violence. Unfortunately, those looking to undermine elections through threatening election workers have been really creative in the past, and so our policy responses have to also be very wide-ranging and creative to try to prevent these types of threats before they happen. To me, this is not a partisan issue. No matter what candidate or party you support, it's vitally important to ensure that officials in your state and in every state can do their job free from harassment.

Simone Leeper: As with so many issues that touch on so many localities, state lawmakers have led the way to protect election workers. For many states, this is new territory, but the stories from election workers have made clear that we can no longer take worker safety for granted.

Kelsey Rogers: It has been really heartening to see so many states take up this issue. State legislatures have actually done a really magnificent job in recognizing the urgency and the importance of codifying protections for election workers, both from the local level all the way up to state election administrators. There are actually over 15 states that have some form of a law protecting election workers. Most bills now implement some form of criminal penalty for the harming or threatening of election workers.

Simone Leeper: One question states have been considering is whether they need to go further than just protecting election workers at polling places on Election Day. Most voters don't dwell on the election process for more than a few days a year, but for many clerks, election directors and employees in their offices, preparing for successful elections is a year-round job, meaning that their exposure to potential harms exists 365 days a year.

Kelsey Rogers: We've been dedicated to trying to support states as they pass laws to protect election workers from harmful threats and violence. We need to make sure that election officials on the ground know about these protections. We need to make sure that prosecutors are aware of these new laws and how they can use them to help protect election workers.

Simone Leeper: It's possible for election workers to be harassed in the run-up to Election Day, after Election Day while the votes are still being counted or even in the aftermath of an election as retaliation if someone doesn't like the final results. In other words, harassment isn't just limited to polling places. It could take place at election workers' homes or out in public such as at the grocery store.

Kelsey Rogers: I would really encourage the states and encourage all of us to think about what a proactive strategy looks like instead of just a reactive strategy and not forget about election officials during the entirety of the year, right? Think about them in things like the appropriations process, what grants might be provided to help with security in their offices, things like bulletproof glass. There's really a whole host of ways that states can help to support election officials.

Simone Leeper: Getting to know election officials, to really see them, to appreciate them and to protect them might turn out to be the silver lining of the 2020 election. After all these civil servants arrived in Washington and in state houses around the country and told lawmakers, "Listen to us, we need help," and states across America have been answering that call with new protections.

Kelsey Rogers: Most election workers are people that you know in your communities, right? They are folks who are frequently not paid nearly as much as they should be for the very long taxing hours that they work. They are really thoughtful about ensuring that everyone gets to participate in elections in their community. No matter who your candidates are, they just want to make sure that folks have the ability to access the ballot.

Simone Leeper: At the end of the day, election workers are vital to our democracy. They put in the work before, during, and after Election Day. They're friends and our neighbors and they know it's up to them to make sure votes are cast fairly and counted correctly, so when you go to cast your vote in the next election, don't forget to thank them for a job well done.

Special thanks to Kelsey Rogers and to Kristina and Steve Reisinger for appearing in this episode. You can find more background information on the topics discussed in our show notes along with a full transcript of the episode.

This season of Democracy Decoded is produced by JAR Audio for Campaign Legal Center. CLC is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that advances democracy through law at the federal, state, and local levels, fighting for every American's right to responsive government, and a fair opportunity to participate in and affect the democratic process. You can learn more about us and support our work at campaignlegal.org.

I'm your host, Simone Leeper. Thanks so much for listening. If you learn something new today, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave us a review and hit subscribe to get updates as we release new episodes in the coming weeks. Leading the production for CLC are Casey Atkins, Multimedia Manager and Matty Tate-Smith, Senior Communications Manager for Elections. This podcast was produced by Sam Eifling and Reaon Ford, edited and mixed by Luke Batiot. Democracy Decoded is a member of the Democracy Group, a network of podcasts dedicated to engaging in civil discourse, inspiring civic engagement, and exploring the future of our democracy. You can learn more at DemocracyGroup.org.