Local police get deeper election roles as tensions rise

local police – Since 2020, local law enforcement has taken on a larger election-security role, fueled by more threats and harassment toward election workers. In Wisconsin’s Green Bay, police leaders say planning year-round has helped them prepare for risks like bomb threats

The first time Chris Davis noticed an election coming, he said it barely registered.

More than 30 years into law enforcement, his memories of earlier cycles are blunt: election day “wouldn’t even come up on roll calls.” For years, he said, elections passed quietly through the day-to-day work of policing.

Now Davis is chief of police in Green Bay, Wisconsin. And elections—especially in a state he describes as “right in the middle of the Wisconsin battleground”—have become something he plans for year-round. He recalled how, after he arrived in Green Bay, he was struck by how nervous city staff were about elections. It wasn’t just a one-day concern. It was a constant pressure that, for police departments, began showing up in daily readiness.

That shift reflects a trend experts have observed nationwide since the 2020 election. Katie Reisner. a spokesperson for the nonpartisan States United Democracy Center. described why the change is here to stay: the rise in threats means law enforcement has a “heightened role to play and a longer-term role to play.” It’s not simply a short-term presence for polling hours. she said. It’s coordination that stretches across cycles.

That assessment lines up with the data. In a survey of local election officials conducted earlier this year by the Brennan Center for Justice, 32% of local election officials reported experiencing “threats, harassment, or abuse because of their job.”

Reisner tied the escalation to the last few years. pointing to the growth of intimidation after President Trump’s unfounded claims that the 2020 election was rife with fraud. She also noted historic turnover among voting officials in recent years—an exhausting churn for agencies already dealing with high-stakes logistics.

In Green Bay, Davis said the need for stronger involvement became clear after he spoke with city officials. The police department, he said, needed “a more proactive role” during elections. But his path to that conclusion wasn’t only about security planning—it was also about knowledge gaps. Davis said that in those conversations. he and his department realized they didn’t know much about election laws. including rules around electioneering.

Wisconsin includes a provision that allows voters to challenge the eligibility of another voter at a polling site. Davis said if that challenge actually played out on the ground, it could quickly turn into a disturbance where police are called.

“In a really tense environment around elections,” he said, “it’s not going to take much for one of these situations to turn into something that a police officer is going to show up at.”

Local police have also found themselves dealing with a particular rise: bomb threats. During the 2024 election, officials received a record number of bomb threats, though Barton said elections went very smoothly, largely because officials were prepared.

“People may think ’24 was a pretty quiet election cycle. ” Tina Barton said. “but that was because of all of these tabletops. and all of the training. and all the hard work that election officials and law enforcement and other stakeholders put in doing this training and planning and practicing over the last few years.”.

Barton—who served as an election administrator for two decades. nearly half that time in Michigan—said the work can’t be treated like a last-minute drill. Elections, she said, are happening all year across the country. Her message to local officials was simple: communication with law enforcement shouldn’t end when ballots are counted.

“There are elections that are taking place all year long,” she said. “So, this is something that we are always in planning mode for the next election cycle. It’s important to start those conversations at the minute that you even think you should start doing it.”

Reisner put it in more personal terms for election officials: don’t hunt for an election worker’s name on election day. The productive move, she said, is “intergovernmental, cross-functional collaboration well in advance of Election Day.”

That push toward coordination is also reflected in the same Brennan Center survey. Reisner said 89% of election administrators plan to coordinate with at least one other agency or department to ensure safe and secure elections before the 2026 midterms.

The question now is what coordination should look like in practice.

Voting-rights advocates say police roles during elections carry real risk of becoming too visible—or too forceful. Those concerns have sharpened this year due to mixed messages from Trump officials and allies about whether federal law enforcement. particularly immigration officials. should be near polling locations.

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche has asked why there is an objection to sending immigration agents to polling locations, while federal law prohibits federal troops or federal law enforcement from interfering with voting.

The concern from advocates isn’t only about federal policy, though. It’s also about how local enforcement might behave when tensions are already high.

Reisner warned that police could “inadvertently contribute to voter suppression” by intimidating some voters. In her view, law enforcement should keep a “light touch” anywhere voters are casting ballots, and largely stay behind the scenes.

“What we don’t want,” she said, “is anyone to feel that by coming in and exercising their civic right and responsibility to cast their ballot that they are in any way, you know, putting themselves at risk or entering a highly securitized space.”

Green Bay’s Davis said his department has aimed at a “right balance” for officers’ presence while people are voting. He said the police can’t pretend they have no impact.

“We have to realize that we can have an impact on somebody’s voting experience,” he said, “and we certainly don’t want to do that.” He added that police professionals planning for elections have to get it right for their community because the needs “varies a lot.”

In Michigan, the approach differs from the ground up. Col. James Grady II, director of the Michigan State Police, said his organization does not man election sites. He said troopers would have to be called to a location in order to have a presence there.

“If there is a complaint where someone has some inappropriate behavior or someone is being attacked, anything like that, the state police will respond,” Grady said. “But … we don’t want someone to feel uncomfortable because law enforcement is there in a uniform.”

Barton said police presence at polling locations can depend on state law. She also pointed to what might be an easier compromise: focusing law enforcement help where ballots are not being cast, such as tabulation centers where ballots are counted.

Reisner said election-related sites—where voters are not casting ballots—could be aided by police presence. Vote count centers, she said, have become targets in recent election cycles, facing heightened protest activity, threats, and disruptions that can impede the work.

And while the threats themselves are evolving, the tension around elections is not entirely new to many Americans. Davis said he expects election security needs to keep changing from cycle to cycle.

“One of the things a career in police work teaches you is: This isn’t going to be the same job in five years [as] it is now,” he said. “And it teaches you to just adapt and meet the challenge, the next challenge as it gets here. And there’s a little bit of forward thinking that we have to do.”

Grady echoed that the threat landscape may feel new in some ways, even if the politics around voting are not. He said many Americans forget the country’s past in which “certain people weren’t allowed to vote,” and that while the old barriers have changed, “there’s a different threat out there now.”

United States elections local police election security Wisconsin Green Bay bomb threats election officials threats harassment abuse States United Democracy Center Brennan Center for Justice Todd Blanche immigration enforcement voting rights