Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: It's an exhausting time to be Seth Bluestein.
Speaker 1: We're going to be working around the clock twenty four
Speaker 1: to seven. We are taking extraordinary measures.
Speaker 2: Bluestein is a Philadelphia's City commissioner and he's in charge
Speaker 2: of election operations there. Back in twenty twenty, as deputy commissioner,
Speaker 2: he was in charge of overseeing the city's vote counting,
Speaker 2: and it was really hard on him.
Speaker 1: I started receiving threats to my personal cell phone and
Speaker 1: to my social media accounts. We had to send LASA
Speaker 1: officer to have a presence outside of my house to
Speaker 1: protect my wife and kids.
Speaker 2: Bluestein says that he's hoping this year will be different,
Speaker 2: but former President Donald Trump has already taken aim at
Speaker 2: the election process in his state. Just a few days ago,
Speaker 2: Trump posted on truth social we caught them cheating big
Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania. He was talking about claims of voter fraud
Speaker 2: registration forms and mail in ballots, which election officials say
Speaker 2: are unfounded. There's also a video of people tearing up
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania ballots that's been circulating, which US intelligence agencies say
Speaker 2: they've determined is disinformation made and amplified by Russian actors.
Speaker 2: Russia has denied these allegations. Ensuring the election runs smoothly
Speaker 2: and that people believe that it's running smoothly is up
Speaker 2: to people like Bluestein and thousands of other city officials
Speaker 2: and election workers, mostly volunteers in counties like Hiss across
Speaker 2: the country. New and sometimes extreme measures are being taken,
Speaker 2: all to protect election workers and combat miss and disinformation
Speaker 2: in the lead up to America finding out who won.
Speaker 2: This is the big take. I'm Salaiah Mosen. It's Tuesday,
Speaker 2: November fifth, twenty twenty four, election day, and today we're
Speaker 2: taking you to the people on the front lines of
Speaker 2: how votes are cast and counted at polling centers, drop boxes,
Speaker 2: and election offices across the nation's ten thousand jurisdictions. We'll
Speaker 2: examine the threats they're facing and the measures being taken
Speaker 2: both to protect them and to protect the integrity of
Speaker 2: the election. To hear more about the new steps being
Speaker 2: taken this election, I spoke with Chris Stroum. He covers
Speaker 2: national security for Bloomberg. He and our colleagues have spoken
Speaker 2: with election officials around the country. Chris what are things
Speaker 2: looking like on the ground.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of concern right now. We've been talking
Speaker 3: with election officials in swing states and non swing states
Speaker 3: just across the board. They're putting in place all these
Speaker 3: security measures, and some of them are really extreme. It
Speaker 3: can seem scary. Voting locations now a lot of them
Speaker 3: have bulletproof glass. Some election sites are putting up fencing
Speaker 3: and barriers. Some election sites are putting up barbed wire.
Speaker 3: In Phoenix, they're going to have snipers on the roof.
Speaker 2: Chris says these measures are driven by what happened four
Speaker 2: years ago.
Speaker 3: Some of the sites where we saw the most violence
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty are now locked down, the most Maricopa County,
Speaker 3: in Phoenix, Philadelphia, Detroit.
Speaker 2: Back in twenty twenty, protests erupted around the election centers
Speaker 2: in Philadelphia and Phoenix as votes were being counted. In Detroit,
Speaker 2: Trump supporters clamored behind the glass doors at the center
Speaker 2: where the state's officials were tallying ballots, demanding they stop
Speaker 2: the count. This year, the city's count is happening in
Speaker 2: a secured area blocked off by police, a metal detector
Speaker 2: and steel doors, and officials nationwide are preparing for a
Speaker 2: number of threats. According to a survey from the Brennan
Speaker 2: Center for Justice, some seventy percent of election workers feel
Speaker 2: the danger is worse this year than in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Obviously, the biggest concern is that there's going to be
Speaker 3: groups that will descend on polling places, whether they're white
Speaker 3: supremacist groups, or whether they're militias, or whether they're just
Speaker 3: angry citizens that don't believe that the elections are secure,
Speaker 3: and that these people are going to come to the
Speaker 3: polling locations and cause violence and potentially hurt people.
Speaker 2: Poll workers are receiving de escalation training to try and
Speaker 2: prevent the sort of violence, and they're also being given
Speaker 2: police radios or portable panic buttons in case things do
Speaker 2: turn violent. But not all these concerns are things election
Speaker 2: officials can prepare for. One additional worry on their minds
Speaker 2: is that if there's any issue with the technology that
Speaker 2: powers voting, people may read malicious intent into it, even
Speaker 2: if it isn't there.
Speaker 3: The concern is that overlaid on top of that is
Speaker 3: all the rhetoric and disinformation about how the election might
Speaker 3: be stolen. Right now, the US government is in like
Speaker 3: a hand to hand combat battle with foreign adversaries like
Speaker 3: Russia and Iran. When it comes to disinformation being spread
Speaker 3: about the elections, you have disinformation on social media, and
Speaker 3: you have major political figures like Donald Trump talking about
Speaker 3: the fact that the elections have been rigged and will
Speaker 3: be rigged, and so that is a concern that you
Speaker 3: could have some systems that go down for certain different reasons,
Speaker 3: and then people read nefarious purposes into those that could
Speaker 3: then escalate into physical confrontations and violence at voting locations
Speaker 3: because people feel that their votes are being tampered with.
Speaker 2: And systems can go down for so many reasons, not
Speaker 2: all nefarious weather, for example. But it's much harder to
Speaker 2: address the threat of mis and disinformation than it is
Speaker 2: to bring in a power generator or even put up
Speaker 2: bulletproof glass after the break. A greater push for transparency,
Speaker 2: how election officials are hoping to combat concerns about interference
Speaker 2: by giving voters an inside look at what's happening behind
Speaker 2: the scenes. For the people on the frontlines of the
Speaker 2: voting process, Preparation for today started months ago. Marion Moskowitz
Speaker 2: is one of them. She is vice chair of the
Speaker 2: Board of commissioners in Chester County, Pennsylvania, a community of
Speaker 2: half a million in the suburbs of outer Philadelphia, and
Speaker 2: she says this year's election is going to look worlds
Speaker 2: different from how she remembers the elections of her youth.
Speaker 4: And when I grew up in Philadelphia, my parents actually
Speaker 4: had the voting booth in our garage. Isn't that hard
Speaker 4: to believe?
Speaker 2: She says The date was actually pretty pleasant back then.
Speaker 4: People from the neighborhood would come, it would be a
Speaker 4: big party, they'd argue about politics, and it was a
Speaker 4: fun community time. And today I look at it and
Speaker 4: it's just so filled with anxiety and anger and mistrust.
Speaker 4: Something went wrong somewhere.
Speaker 2: Moskowitz was the chair of the county election board back
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty. That's when it took four days for
Speaker 2: the state of Pennsylvania to be called for Joe Biden,
Speaker 2: and she says that the lead up to that call
Speaker 2: was tough on poll workers.
Speaker 4: I have never seen people so stressed in my entire life.
Speaker 4: People were yelling at them, telling them not to trust
Speaker 4: the elections, and that they were doing things behind the
Speaker 4: scenes to affect the outcome.
Speaker 2: This year, Chester County is trying something new to get
Speaker 2: ahead of all the misinformation that led to these claims
Speaker 2: of election fraud.
Speaker 4: Our whole election department is live streamed. You can go
Speaker 4: on now and watch everything, including the counting. See everybody
Speaker 4: processing them, see the machines, watch everybody in the room.
Speaker 2: The hope is that more transparency, giving voters a look
Speaker 2: inside the vote counting process will help clear up some
Speaker 2: concerns around the integrity of the race this time around.
Speaker 2: But it's especially tough in a state like Pennsylvania, where
Speaker 2: the law says that poll workers aren't allowed to start
Speaker 2: counting mail in ballots until seven am on election day.
Speaker 4: Everybody in Pennsylvania should realize that we are not going
Speaker 4: to have results today.
Speaker 2: It's this window of time between when polls close and
Speaker 2: the race can be called that's weighing heavily on the
Speaker 2: mind of Philadelphia Commissioner Seth Bluestein, who we heard from
Speaker 2: at the top of the show.
Speaker 1: That window of time is the biggest threat for miss
Speaker 1: and disinformation, which can lead to harassment threats, And it's
Speaker 1: really that window that I'm most concerned about.
Speaker 2: Bluestein says that the city is taking measures to try
Speaker 2: and shorten that window. They've invested in high speed scanners
Speaker 2: and updated envelope extraction machines, and they've hired additional workers
Speaker 2: to speed up vote counting. The city's election budget has
Speaker 2: tripled to nearly forty million dollars since twenty nineteen. But
Speaker 2: there's only so much they can do when they aren't
Speaker 2: allowed to start counting the hundreds of thousands of absentee
Speaker 2: ballots in advance. So he says he'll be trying to
Speaker 2: update the public on social media and through the press
Speaker 2: to assure people that delayed results aren't a reason to
Speaker 2: doubt their integrity.
Speaker 1: Transparency is a really important piece of this puzzle, important
Speaker 1: for us to as establish a pattern of facts that
Speaker 1: are accurate that we can point back to after the
Speaker 1: election to show what the actual truth is.
Speaker 2: But election officials are walking a fine line. They want
Speaker 2: people to feel safe voting and feel safe that their
Speaker 2: vote will be counted accurately, and yet they don't want
Speaker 2: all the extra precautions to intimidate people from coming out
Speaker 2: to vote. Here's Bloomberg's Christrom again.
Speaker 3: Election officials are trying to strike a balance and saying
Speaker 3: we're doing everything we can on the security front, but
Speaker 3: we also don't want to scare people. We don't want
Speaker 3: to scare voters away. It's safe to vote. We have
Speaker 3: a lot of safeguards in place to help ensure that
Speaker 3: our elections are free.
Speaker 2: And fair, and they're being tested right now.
Speaker 3: They're all being tested. Yeah, and what we don't know
Speaker 3: is how this year is going to play out when
Speaker 3: we get on the other side of election Day.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to The Big Take from Bloomberg News.
Speaker 2: I'm Salaiah Mosen. This episode was produced by Julia Press.
Speaker 2: It was edited by Caitlin Kenny and Aaron Edwards. It
Speaker 2: was mixed by Alex Sugia and fact checked by Adriana Tapia.
Speaker 2: A special thanks to Mark Niquette. Naomi Shaven, who also
Speaker 2: edited this episode, is our senior producer. Wendy Benjaminson and
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Ponso provide editorial direction. Nicole Beemsterbower is our executive producer.
Speaker 2: Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts. Please follow and
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