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Anxiety 2020 at the Polls 10/28 06:46
Americans aren't accustomed to worrying about violence or safety ahead of an
election. It's a luxury afforded by years of largely peaceful voting, a recent
history of fairly orderly displays of democracy. But after months filled with
disease, disruption and unrest, Americans are worried that Election Day could
become a flashpoint.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Gary Kauffman says he does not scare easily. So when men
waving President Donald Trump flags drive by his house in downtown Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, he stands on his front steps and waves a banner for Democrats Joe
Biden and Kamala Harris.
"Sometimes I yell at them. They yell back at me," says Kauffman, 54.
Still, Kauffman is keeping a closer eye on who they are and what they're
carrying as Election Day approaches. Tension has been rising in his town, known
best as hallowed ground of the Civil War's bloodiest battle. Recently, it's
become a hot spot of angry confrontations between Trump supporters and liberal
protesters. Kauffman has seen some of the Trump supporters carrying weapons.
"If there's guns, I'm a bit more cautious," he said on Monday.
Americans aren't accustomed to worrying about violence or safety ahead of an
election. It's a luxury afforded by years of largely peaceful voting, a recent
history of fairly orderly displays of democracy. But after months filled with
disease, disruption and unrest, Americans are worried that Election Day could
become a flashpoint.
With Election Day next week, voters can point to plenty of evidence behind
the anxiety. More than 226,000 people have died of the coronavirus in the
United States, and cases are spiking across the country. A summer of protests
of racial injustice and sometimes violent confrontations has left many on edge.
Gun sales have broken records. Trump has called on supporters to monitor voting
and has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power or to explicitly
condemn a white supremacist group.
There was the alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and
another spate of violent protest this week over a police shooting of a Black
man in Philadelphia.
"Human beings don't do well with uncertainty, and there's been a lot of
uncertainty this year," said Mara Suttmann-Lea, an assistant professor of
government at Connecticut College conducting research on voting. "Absolutely
I'm seeing heightened levels of anxiety ... and it's a more general,
existential anxiety -- 'What is the state of our democracy?'"
Those worries have shown up in polling. About 7 in 10 voters say they are
anxious about the election, according to an AP-NORC poll this month. Biden
supporters were more likely to say so than Trump supporters -- 72% to 61%.
For some, the worries are a vague sense of looming trouble that could take
many forms -- conflict at a polling place, protest over the outcome, protest
over no outcome, a conflagration that splits Americans over now-familiar
divisions.
"You can feel it in the energy," particularly on social media, says
Cincinnati voter Josh Holsten Sr., 42. "There are just a lot of extra tensions
that don't necessarily need to be there."
Holsten says he is voting for Trump but thinks neither the president nor
Biden is doing enough to calm people down. The car salesman has even stocked up
on food, water and bulletproof vests for his family -- in case the election
sparks something bad.
Law enforcement and election officials are preparing, too. FBI and local
officials in several states have been conducting drills and setting up command
centers to respond to election-related unrest.
Election officials are training poll workers on how to de-escalate conflict
and ensuring they're prepped on the rules about poll monitoring, voter
intimidation and harassment.
"The procedures have always been there. We've just never had to use them,"
said Ellen Sorensen, an elections judge in Naperville, Illinois, outside
Chicago. "Perhaps this time we may. I don't know."
A group called Election Protection Arizona says it intends to train hundreds
of people at the polls, including on de-escalation guidance in case of
confrontations.
The Rev. Joan Van Becelaere, executive director of Unitarian Universalist
Justice Ohio and part of an effort to keep the peace, said the virus has fueled
fear and division between Trump supporters and others.
The groups, she said, are "extreme places of tension that we really don't
want to meet at these polls."
Millions of Americans are voting despite the worries. More than 67 million
people have already voted in the U.S., and more than 23 million of those cast
their ballots in person.
A poll in August by the Pew Research Center suggests that more Americans see
the stakes as higher than usual in the 2020 presidential election. Twenty years
ago, just half of voters said it really mattered who won. As of August, 83%
express this view.
For some, that sense of urgency, combined with fierce partisanship and
anger, feels like a recipe for conflict.
"November's going to be scary because both sides aren't going to give," said
Bob Stanley, 66, a longtime Republican and Trump supporter from Johnstown,
Pennsylvania.
Stanley expressed a hope shared by Republicans and Democrats: "I hope it's
going to be an overwhelming majority, or there will be trouble."
Another Johnstown resident, Fran Jacobs, a 76-year-old Biden supporter,
expressed similar concerns about whether the result would be clear, whether
people would be calm and whether the world would look at the U.S. as a
functional democracy.
"I've never been frightened for the country. I always figured we're gonna
make it. We always pull something up. And I'm really frightened this time," she
said, looking to the sky. "It's all in your hands, I know."
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