Missouri Senate debate could soon begin on a bill that would create the offense of tampering with an election official. Tampering includes such things as harassment, intimidation, attempting to influence or pressure, and spreading personal information of the election official or their family.
Sen. Jamie Burger, R-Benton, said his bill is about protecting poll workers.
“I think that we have to make sure that poll workers are protected,” he told Missourinet. “There’s so many people that get aggravated when they come to vote at a certain precinct or polling place and find out that the polling place has been moved. They no longer can vote there, and they just get agitated.”
Burger said that he’s heard from county clerks concerned about poll worker retention.
“You know this comes from basically the county clerks wanting to do this to be able to retain workers and they see it happening all across the state,” he explained. “Now when the county clerks testified in support of, there’s been stories all across the state of Missouri, different stories. Not to the event of death or anything like that. We’re wanting to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
A swatting incident last year targeting former Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft has led to Burger’s bill. Swatting is when someone calls emergency services to make a false report of a serious emergency so that a SWAT team is dispatched to a specific address.
“Swatting is defined as the action or practice of making a prank call,” he said. “If voters are bold enough to attack Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft in the form of swatting, just imagine what they would do with a poll worker. That’s what kind of led us to this point that I would think we need to file something to create protection for our poll workers.”
Bev Ehlen, president of the conservative group Liberty Link Missouri, said Burger’s bill would “strip” the First Amendment Right to Freedom of Speech.
Under the bill, being charged with tampering with an election official could land suspects up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
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