A drop-off ballot box placed near the Wayne K. Curry Sports and Learning Center in Landover on July 26. Photo by William J. Ford.
There’s a rarified air to the monthly board meetings of the Greater Washington Council of Governments (COG).
Elected officials from across the region gather in a bright, airy meeting room on Capitol Hill, far nicer than the grimy government hearing rooms they’re accustomed to, to discuss governing concepts and policy priorities without getting too deep into the weeds most of the time.
Maryland’s representatives to the COG board represent jurisdictions from Frederick to Southern Maryland. And as Election Day approaches, these officials and their counterparts from Virginia and the District of Columbia are unified behind one idea: Ensuring the integrity of the vote and the safety of the voters. They agree that the very fabric of democracy depends on it.
So when FBI Special Agent Matthew Drummond from the bureau’s D.C. field office offered to brief the COG board last week about how the federal government is working to confront threats to the upcoming election, particularly from malign foreign actors, the local officials decided to take the information in a rare executive session, out of public view.
In interviews afterwards, they were circumspect about what they heard.
“In general, he laid out a pretty thorough description of what the potential issues are of voter fraud and the level of participation bad actors like Russia and China have on the process,” said Reuben B. Collins II (D), the chair of the Charles County Board of County Commissioners and current vice chair of the COG board.
Montgomery County Councilmember Kate Stewart (D), a former COG board chair, said part of the agent’s presentation was about how the FBI and local governments can work together to thwart efforts to interfere with elections — and how to respond if something happens.
“It’s a reminder of how fragile our democracy is and the need to be especially vigilant, because the threats to our democracy are both overt and covert,” she said.
Before the private briefing last week, the COG board heard from three local elections officials — one from Maryland, one from Virginia and one from the District — who told them about their efforts to ensure that the voting — and counting — goes smoothly.
It’s no longer just Election Day that the elections officials must focus on. All three jurisdictions have mail-in voting and substantial early voting periods, in addition to the tradition of voting on the first Tuesday after Nov. 1. Election Day this year is on Nov. 5.
Gretchen Reinemeyer, the elections director in Arlington County, Virginia, said that there are typically three kinds of risks that can disrupt elections: cyber, which includes attacks on voting systems and AI-generated disinformation; physical; and legal. Physical threats, she said, can run the gamut, from acts of terrorism to freakish weather to something as irritating as a fist fight at a polling place. Legal threats can occur throughout the election process.
Elections officials, Reinemeyer said, are developing strategies to prevent, detect and then respond to these disruptions.
“We are talking about ongoing efforts that take place 365 days a year,” said Boris Brajkovic, the elections director in Montgomery County, Maryland’s largest jurisdiction.
Montgomery County, where there are about 750,000 registered voters, illustrates the size of the task of securing elections. The county has 252 Election Day polling places, along with 14 early voting sites and 58 drop-off stations for absentee ballots. This month, Brajkovic said, the county is sending out about 147,000 mail-in ballots to voters who have requested them.
It’s a reminder of how fragile our democracy is and the need to be especially vigilant, because the threats to our democracy are both overt and covert.
– Montgomery County Councimember Kate Stewart
There’s an upside to having so many options for voting, the elections officials said, but that also sows confusion. Brajkovic said his office is frequently receiving calls seeking clarification on when and how to vote — though the volume of calls isn’t as high as it was during the pandemic year of 2020.
“We are not out of the storm, if you can describe it like that,” he said.
Brajkovic said the elections board in Montgomery County is laser-focused on community outreach. Recently, he said, elections officials met with every postmaster in the county, and they’ve tried to have a presence at public libraries, schools and community centers.
“We have a [public information officer] on the staff all the time,” Brajkovic said. “That enables us to project our information throughout the year.”
The biggest source of disinformation surrounding elections, the officials said, is on who is eligible to vote.
“Misinformation and disinformation continues to be a battle in securing elections,” said Sarah Graham, communications director for the District of Columbia elections office.
Ever since the 2020 presidential election, and former President Donald Trump’s widespread (and debunked) allegations of voter fraud, there has been extra public scrutiny about how ballots are processed and counted.
Brajkovic said that to be as transparent as possible, Montgomery County livestreams its canvass of election results, its scanning of ballots, and its recounts, whenever those occur. With two razor-thin Democratic primaries for county executive in 2018 and 2022, those became appointment television in the weeks after the primaries.
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Still, elections officials are increasingly becoming targets for criticism — and worse.
“Your job is hard, and it’s harder than it needs to be,” said Phyllis Randall (D), chair-at-large of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors in Virginia.
D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen (D), who heads the COG board, asked if there are legislative remedies to some of the challenges that elections officials face. In fact, Maryland offers a few examples.
The Maryland General Assembly this year passed a bill to add protections for election administrators. It lays out fines and potential prison time for an individual who threatens an election official or that official’s immediate family.
The legislature this year also passed a bill requiring the State Board of Elections to maintain a portal on the its website for the public to report election misinformation and disinformation. It lays out how the state board should review the material and offers guidelines for referring submissions to the state prosecutor’s office, which is tasked with investigating and prosecuting most election law violations in the state.
Beyond legislation, political leaders must also convey to the public their faith in the election process, said Montgomery County Councilmember Evan Glass (D). Glass said he is impressed that when county elections officials come to the council with their annual budget request, the chair and vice chair, a Democrat and a Republican, sit side-by-side, which strengthens the sense that elections are being administered fairly.
“I think all of us here could defuse some future debates that we might have by getting voices of solidarity from our appointed and elected elections officials,” Glass said.
Brajkovic expressed a similar sentiment.
“It actually takes a village … when it comes to securing the election,” he said.