Newsletter: Issue 36

Published: October 14, 2026

In this issue:

Situation Room: Disturbances at election offices and polling places come in many forms, but standard approaches for how you react can help lessen the impact and protect voters, staff, and the electoral process.
Resource Library: Keeping reference cards and de-escalation guidance handy can help staff respond calmly and effectively when a tense or emergent situation arises.
Planning Desk, E-3: With a little under three weeks before the election, shore up your physical security measures with these easy-to-accomplish final checks.
New Exchange Webinar Today at 3:00 PM ET! Register here to join us for the Exchange-hosted webinar: Secure Your People, Secure Yourself: Getting Yourself and Your Staff Ready to Face Any Situation on Election Day and Beyond.

Situation Room

Successfully Dealing with Election-Day Disturbances

In a recent incident in Pinellas County, Florida, a voter was arrested at the office of the Supervisor of Elections and taken to the county jail. Her arrest was the outcome of an escalated dispute that started when she was not allowed to vote in her preferred party’s primary because she was registered as unaffiliated, and it culminated in her attempt to video the interaction.

When she arrived at the polling place to vote that morning, the woman’s voter registration record showed no party affiliation. She insisted she had affiliated with a party when initially registering to vote in the county. Since Florida is a closed primary state, she was not allowed to vote.

She then went to the main election office upset, intending to video her attempt to correct the situation. A deputy supervisor offered to show her her registration record, but he objected to being filmed or recorded, citing Florida’s two-party consent law. That law prevents taping without the consent of both parties when privacy could be expected, including in some public settings. When she disagreed and continued to film, she was told that law enforcement would be called. Law enforcement arrived, spoke with her, and when she refused to leave the grounds, they arrested her for trespassing.

Interestingly, both parties appear relatively calm, although the portion of the video publicly available may not show the entire interaction. In statements following the incident, the election office cited the handling of mail ballots as an additional reason for barring filming in its office and lobby.

The incident serves as a reminder that election officials increasingly encounter challenging visitors who may test the boundaries of rules. “First Amendment auditors,” election observers, and voters recording inside restricted areas all present similar challenges. Election offices must know both the legal foundations of their policies and best practices for handling such challenging situations. Following are some best practices to help avoid escalating a situation or infringing on the right to observe or seek answers about one’s own registration, the right to vote, and the electoral process. Also see this issue’s Resource Library below for additional de-escalation guidance.

Focus on Conduct

An observer with a camera is not necessarily a problem. Officials should focus on specific conduct: Is the person blocking access? Entering a restricted area? Interfering with voters? Recording where prohibited? Refusing a lawful direction? Creating a safety concern?

No matter how the person labels their own conduct, the label should not determine the response. Instead, the conduct should inform your next steps.

Keep Engagement Neutral

Explain the rule. Clarify what is allowed and prohibited, and why.
Steer clear of constitutional analysis. Acknowledge the concern, and explain the applicable election law, rule, or procedure.
Use one spokesperson. One trained employee should engage while another monitors the situation.
Move the conversation away from voters. Reducing the audience can help prevent escalation.
Remain calm and professional. Someone holding a camera may be trying to provoke a reaction.

Have a Reporting Plan

De-escalation does not mean allowing misconduct to continue indefinitely. Election workers should know in advance:

Who can direct a person to leave or stop prohibited conduct.
Who should be called if the person refuses.
When law enforcement should be contacted.
What to do if the situation becomes a safety issue.
How the incident should be documented afterward.

The same preparation should apply to use of drones and other unusual disruptions. Election workers should know whom to contact and should not attempt to physically interfere with a drone themselves.

The Goal

The goal should be to protect voters, election workers, and the election process, and keep election operations functioning. A calm explanation, clear alternative, and well-understood escalation procedure can often keep a minor confrontation from becoming a larger incident.

The Situation Room focuses on real security incidents and threats in the news relevant to election security. To review previous issues, see the newsletter archive.

Resource Library

Resources for Emergent Situations

The moment a hostile person appears at your front counter or a ransomware email pops up in your inbox, you or your staff may need immediate access to best practices for handling the situation. Keeping hard copy guides handy can allow you to immediately launch a textbook response, even when your computer is down or you don’t have time to consult online resources.

The Exchange’s Election Incident Quick Reference Cards form a literal deck of cards – aces to play when a difficult situation arises. The deck contains five cards addressing doxxing, evacuation threats, PACE, phishing, and ransomware. Each card starts with “Step Zero” and what to do next, and it provides a place to personalize your key contacts and resources. An individual design of each card helps you quickly identify which one to grab in that moment of need.

* In light of yesterday’s events in Louisiana and Oklahoma (see stories in Election Security News section below), review with your team the evacuation threats desk reference card above coupled with Election Mail Handling Procedures to Protect Against Hazardous Materials.

De-Escalation for Election Officials was recently published by the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections and underlines the importance of “tapping in and tapping out.” A colleague can tap the shoulder of the “first responder” to a challenging visitor and take their place. That can give them a break and create an opportunity to reset the conversation; for instance, by explaining that filming policies are grounded in public considerations such as protecting voter information.

The guide is centered on the CLARA framework for de-escalation:

Calm: Establish a calm tone, and don’t match the person’s volume or attitude.
Listen: Allow the person to speak first and explain their concerns. Listen attentively.
Affirm: Look for points of potential agreement or empathy to affirm the person’s feelings.
Respond: Answer questions calmly, fully, and directly with factual information.
Address Alternatives: Provide constructive and lawful alternatives or additional steps.

Reviewing procedures for responding to emergent situations ahead of time can make a big difference in the outcome for all involved. Make time now to review with your staff, and lay the foundation for positive resolutions.

The Resource Library section of the newsletter spotlights election security resources. All highlighted resources are available online in the Resource Library.

Planning Desk

Week E-3: Covering Your Physical Bases with High-Impact Steps for the Final Stretch

In this final stretch before Election Day, it’s critical to give physical security the same attention you’ve been giving cyber and operational safeguards. As with the last two Planning Desk issues, we’re highlighting steps you can still take to bolster your security posture quickly.

Even if you ran these checks earlier in the year, they’re worth another review. Doors get propped. Staff changes. A stack of supplies is inadvertently moved into a camera’s view.

With just under three weeks to go, small fixes still matter. Here are seven targeted actions to strengthen your security footing:

Take a lap—then take another after dark. Walk your office and have polling place leads check voting locations. Look for blocked exits, failed lights, and obstructed views around entrances and parking areas. Where cameras are installed, confirm they’re recording and that footage can be retrieved. Fix what you can; assign follow-up for the rest. Our Physical Security Fast Wins is a handy companion.
Give doors and keys a reality check. Confirm restricted-area doors close and lock, account for keys and badges, and deactivate lost or outdated credentials. Refresh visitor sign-in and escort procedures, and make public and restricted areas easy to distinguish. A badge helps identify someone; the door still needs to do its job.
Check the precious cargo. Recheck ballot and voting equipment storage, tamper-evident seals, and access logs. Make sure all staff, including temporary workers, know your chain-of-custody and two-person procedures. Include drop-box locks, seals, and collection handoffs if applicable.
Get on the map. Send emergency partners your current polling site addresses, hours, and contacts. Confirm temporary voting sites are identified in local 911 dispatch, as CISA recommends. Review after-hours contact numbers, who has evacuation authority, and your plan for continuing voting if a site becomes unusable.
Give the plan a five-minute rehearsal. Pick one scenario for a quick staff huddle—an escalating visitor, a building evacuation, etc. Confirm who takes the lead, how workers summon help, and where everyone goes. If you use a code phrase, practice it and the response it should trigger. The Elections Group’s guidance can help with the refresher.
Put the right number in every pocket. Our Election Emergency Response Guide and Lanyard Contact Cards make that easy, with one for local election officials and one for state election officials. Both come in editable PowerPoint files: add local contacts, verify backups, review instructions, and print copies for staff and poll workers. Nobody needs a phone-number scavenger hunt during an emergency.
And one more for the late nights: Arrange a buddy or security escort for the walk to the car, and let someone you trust know about after-hours or offsite work. The Brennan Center’s Personal Physical Safety Checklist offers a few more quick reminders.

None of this is new, and that’s the point. Security depends on habits, and the weeks before an election are when those habits count most. Three weeks is plenty of time to tackle these steps, whether you’re checking your earlier work or getting started now. Take the lap. Make the call. Print the cards. You still have time to make a difference.

The Planning Desk is a running timeline of key election security tasks. You can find prior editions in the newsletter archive.