--- title: THE OFFICIALS Presented by TIME Studios | TIME description: US election officials in rural and urban jurisdictions of four battleground states hold the line against organized efforts to undermine their work as they prepare for the contentious 2024 contest. Directors/Producers Sara Archambault and Margo Guernsey, Executive Producers Maida Lynn and Sarah Longwell. canonical: https://time.com/video/kfEgGM6h/ og:title: THE OFFICIALS Presented by TIME Studios og:description: US election officials in rural and urban jurisdictions of four battleground states hold the line against organized efforts to undermine their work as they prepare for the contentious 2024 contest. Directors/Producers Sara Archambault and Margo Guernsey, Executive Producers Maida Lynn and Sarah Longwell. og:url: https://time.com/video/kfEgGM6h/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/kfEgGM6h/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: THE OFFICIALS Presented by TIME Studios twitter:description: US election officials in rural and urban jurisdictions of four battleground states hold the line against organized efforts to undermine their work as they prepare for the contentious 2024 contest. Directors/Producers Sara Archambault and Margo Guernsey, Executive Producers Maida Lynn and Sarah Longwell. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/kfEgGM6h/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # THE OFFICIALS Presented by TIME Studios > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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Directors/Producers Sara Archambault and Margo Guernsey, Executive Producers Maida Lynn and Sarah Longwell._ --- Sep 19, 2024 3:46 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Producers and Studios Are Pushing to Make Movies More Sustainable](/video/7fgMows0/) ### Producers and Studios Are Pushing to Make Movies More Sustainable [TIME Presents An American Hibakusha ](/video/lpgOjUyo/) ### TIME Presents An American Hibakusha [Watch Trailer for Richard Gere's Time Out of Mind Official](/video/87mzG9YV/) ### Watch Trailer for Richard Gere's Time Out of Mind Official --- ## Transcript Really appreciate this opportunity. It really is important to me to have the chance to come and talk to people around the states and to be able to answer their questions directly. You know, I know elections are something that are absolutely, you know, sacred to people. And so being able to get answers to your questions is something I think you'll find I do not take lightly. All right. The first question I have is, if election results can be trusted, why are you here? Appreciate Running elections is not easy. But even when we had tough times in the past, we didn't see anything like this level of scrutiny. Not even close. There's so much that people just don't recognize it happens in elections. To get the calendar blocked, get everything set up, classes for election workers, prepping, you know, all the other precinct tabulators. All of our software stuff has to be looked at holes materials, so it's constant. There's so many details in elections and election officials. Don't have room for error. Thank you. That creates anxiety. And in this environment, you just don't know what to expect anymore. But it's an honor. My job is to make sure the voter's voice is heard. So I'm a complete dork about elections. He got the future voters stickers. So excited. The Administration of election is a thankless child. Nobody grows up and says, I want to be an election administrator. You stumble into it. And you like it because it's worthy. It's a worthy profession. You're helping people. I love all the process of it, the logic of it. I'm like, yes or no, on or off, one or zero. You win? Lis. Wisconsin always has close elections. We are the like most purple of purple states. Knowing that the margins are going to be narrow, we have to be on top of so much. Let me transfer you to one of our election administration specialists. Yesterday, we received 175 phone calls and 461 e mails. As the nonpartisan chief election official for the state, I support the officials who handle everything at the local level, including election day. It is an enormous event. I mean, we have about 4,000 polling places that will be up and running in 2024 during the presidential election. We have 1,850 municipal clerks. We have probably about 40,000 poll workers Think about that just from, like, an events planning perspective. If somebody plans a big event, it's usually in one place. On one day, you sort of have these set conditions. Imagine running 4,000 events on a single day. It has to be done perfectly. And we have four statewide elections in 2024. So we're about to start not just a sprint. We're about to start that marathon that is election year. DTE. With all of this power outage, are we meeting with them or have we met with them? We haven't met with them. These buildings, I'm really concerned with this weather. Yeah. As cold as it is. Election is in a couple of weeks. For the presidential primary election, we received 26,760 applications. Being an elected official in the City of Detroit, you live in a fish f. You feel like you're always being watched. Community wants it done well, and they want it done right. And I've always been the kind of person. If you can do better, do better. I was a teacher and a mother and a wife. And the election results, I think, were 2004, took two weeks for us to get for the City of Detroit, the largest city in the state to get all of our election results, and I thought we can do better. So I told my husband, You know what? I'm gonna run for this because this makes no sense. And I consider myself an educator still. But the walls have been brought down, right? I'm no longer confined to a classroom, but I teach an entire city. Detroit is a gritty town. We've been battle tested, and its people demonstrate that same spirit on a day to day basis. Now, in 2085, when I first started working here with punch cars, elections remained under the radar. The only thing that you heard about elections were the results. You never heard about the administration of the process. It wasn't until the 2000 presidential election that people began to look at elections differently. And for the first time, election workers who had always operated behind the scenes were in the spotlight. Election officials. We plan for a perfect election. That's the goal. There's so much that goes into it, and I'm a planner. I love to know ahead of time how everything's gonna work. These are all color coded, too. Everybody is. So all of their pull books match their color codes. Setting everything up for logic and accuracy testing. If you pull off the seal, it shows a void mark on it. So once the bipartisan teams get done testing, these all get a seal on them when they're locked. We're adding security to the office. We're adding cameras, we're adding sensors. These are the scanners that go to the color coded, like Holer ridges green because it's in the Tora school district, and they're green. It's just a really good feeling. Like, I get to let people vote. I mean, there's not a lot of people that can do that. Marion County Election Center. This is Diana. How may I help you? You have 29 days before any elections to declare a party? 500,000 registered voters in the city of Detroit. We have 200 and some polling locations. So they had enough signatures for the Constitutional amendment, so it'll be on the November ballot. Which one? The abortion issue? We get those ballots that go down to the Department of Elections, they verify the signatures. They upload that information in the Michigan qualified vote fi I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands on nation under God, indivisal, liberty and justice for all. Glad everybody is back. It's great to see so many faces that I recognize. I'd like to start. You'll see if there's any questions anybody has out there as it relates to the election process. Anything's fair game, except for politics and personal opinion. I do run on a party ticket. Okay. I've been a registered Republican. I probably shouldn't named the party, but I did. So I've been registered with a party, you know, basically since day one. But there are no politics as it relates to partisanship inside here. I feel as a supervisor of elections, you know, I get to hold a position that at the end of the night tells you who won and who lost. And my own personal opinion should never cause you doubt. Each office in Ohio is run by a bipartisan team. I'm affiliated with the Republican Party. Rosanne, my partner is actually affiliated with the Democratic Party. So we got to enable everything on them. I think it's really beneficial that we don't have one party running an election. Everyone's represented, and somebody comes in and doesn't know what party we are here, then we're doing our job well. This is my ninth presidential election cycle. And there's one thing that gets said. I think at every single one of them. And that is this is the most important presidential election cycle in our lifetime. So do you believe this one, the 2024 presidential election cycle is the most important in our lifetime? You know, I do. Not from a political candidate perspective like that. It's for the process of conducting elections in and of itself, because the election process is under attack. Election officials across this country have been under attack since 2020, falsely accused of conspiring to steal or rig the last presidential election. Hi. Chill. Amid a torrent of misinformation and falsehood, election denialism is now a potent political force. I am very worried about the fairness and security of our elections that Megan Walk remains in charge of them. It's miss Wolk that allowed for the use of illegal dropboxes in ballad harvesting, and there's so much more. The criticism of election officials that we're experiencing. That's really been the change over the last few years. When the pandemic happened, the environment was so heightened that making claims about elections in order to sort of disparage the process, that really started to take off. This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. Here in Wisconsin, it was a concerted effort to just pile these claims out of thin air on top of election officials, through litigation, through public records request, through courts, through audits, through recounts. All of a sudden, you know, instead of people looking at the record that's in front of them, they were just sort of making things up out of anger. It just felt overwhelming. We were no longer working in a place of reality. We had now crossed over into this place where facts didn't matter anymore. You rigged my election. Several of my colleagues, not only here in Florida, but across the country. We started receiving calls where they would personally name us and personally blame us for the outcome of the election. And one of my colleagues just south of me a little bit, who's register same party affiliation as I am, and they're saying, you know, he was in on the conspiracy to elect the Democratic candidate and here, I'm like, Did you see the results? Former president won the State of Florida and won by a substantial amount. You know, so it didn't make sense to me, still to this day. I don't know to what end are we doing this? To what end? Some stunning testimony before Congress from Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey. She says she's losing staff and living in fear because of claims of fraud in the 2020 election. And the greatest threat came to me when I was taking a walk just to clear my mind. The park is two blocks from my home. One day, this big six foot three Guy gets out of the car. 'Cause I've been watching you. I noticed you don't have your dog with you today. And because of you, Trump lost, why did you allow Trump to lose? And you're gonna pay for that? And a neighbor who happened to be driving by. She saw me and she said, miss Winfrey? Are you okay? I said, absolutely, I'm not. And she kind of circled her car around this man so that I could get home. So I did not tell my husband when I got home. I got very angry. And I went out looking for him. I know. What was that gonna do? What it did for me, it gave me this adrenal, and it's like, Are you kidding me? How dare you? How dare you? It's just a constant demonizing of election officials when we could go back to 2015, and nobody knew we were here. I was kind of great. Now. I go to church and someone sitting at the end of the eu that has just been attacking us on social media. This was happening with different election officials across the country. I hate that elections have been demonized. I hate that people don't understand what we do because we're really proud of what we do. I mean, we know we run good elections. We test everything. We go through every checklist. We make sure everything is done to the letter of the law. Because we want the community to see us as people who are fighting for what's right and fighting to make sure that people's voices are heard no matter what the outcome. What happened is that the process of making sure that the candidate who wins is the individual who received the most votes. That whole process has been politicized. You already sure that things changed in 2020. Can you talk about what kinds of pressures were you undering? Tremendous pressure. I had COVID a couple of times. My husband had COVID, and he was suffering with stage for cancer. So I felt pretty chaotic. This is Hall E of Dn TCF Center, where we were tabulating more than 174,000 absentee ballots. This room was saturated with energy. When the initial results were reported, Trump was leading in Michigan. But after Wayne County began to report their results, Biden was up. And then that's when this chanting erupted. So. But even in the midst of all of the chaos, every last one of those ballots were tabulated. But then the certification of the election results went to the State Board of Canvasses, and that's where the major challenge came. The Board of Canvassers did not want to certify our elections, and they were making it very partisan. And that really irks me because I'm a nonpartisan clerk. But they said they would not certify unless I present myself in person via Zoom. This is the first time I recall ever being called in to speak before the Board of Canvassers. But when you tell me that we won't certify, unless you present yourself and you know that I have COVID, and you know that my family is not well, I do it anyway. We've done everything to ensure that our process is open, that our process is transparent, and that it is. I just picked my husband up from the hospital. And then I went into the conference room and set my piece in terms of why this election should be certified. And thank the Lord, it was certified. And then I went home. Marion County, Supervisor of elections. This is Madison. How can I help you? Did you want all the elections by mail this year? Hello, Mr. Wolfox. It has been brought to my attention that you think this election is yours. This is not your election. This is the election of the people. So if you want to live in a communist country, you go to Cuba, or Venezuela, you go eat dogs over there, but not, right? Wesley Wilcox goes on CNN and tells people that basically he's above audits that you're not gonna audit his elections because he does it right, and you just have to believe he does it right because he says so. I mean, some of the things that get tossed at me, like, you're not doing your job. You're not competent. You need to follow the law, and I'm like, I am following the law. Let me tell you, Mr. Wilcox, I've got a platoon of lawyers ready to bring you to court and the citizens of Merin Tommy won't stand for sigigans in the upcoming elections. You know, I'm being attacked for things that I supposedly said and I never said. The local guy that was on the radio I'd been on that show a couple of times, you know, talking about election stuff, know them for a long time, and the lack of decency to text me and say, Hey, we heard you said this. You know, if you said that, you know, I'm like, you know, at least contact me and see you. And I'll show you everything I've got. Everything I've done, I've done in a public manner. Representative os, I am calling on you to have impeachment papers at the ready to remove her from office so that the state can restore my civil right to have my vote count. Tonight, there's a new turn in the fight over who will lead Wisconsin's elections? Senate Republicans want to have a nomination vote so they can reject Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Megan Wolf. Today, Republicans held the first public hearing on Wolf's free nomination. These are felony crimes. This is the cause of Megan Wolf. We will not back down. We will not tire her out. We are watching your every move. Not only don't renew her, fire her. You know, some of these people, the way they'll just say my name or they'll describe me. They just do it with such anger, such vitriol. It's really almost absurd how drastically the tables turned on me. I mean, in 2018, my commission bipartisanly unanimously supported me as the administrator. And then the Republican controlled Senate unanimously confirmed me. But after the 2020 election, it felt like I became public enemy number one. The governor has implemented or approved extra security for her. We've talked about this before documented some of the threats targeting her. But I can tell you that some of them are threats to her safety and her family safety and well being. And some of them have been treated as very legitimate. In other words from people who had plans and intents and opportunities to do harm. You know, I don't fault people that have these strong feelings and opinions about elections. I have strong feelings about elections. I think we all do, because we know how important it is. All I want is to show people how elections work so that they can have confidence in the process. You know, if there's tough questions tonight, that's okay. I live my life in the hot seat. I really do. And it's my great pleasure tonight to talk to you about the different levels of Wisconsin governments and what everyone's role is in Wisconsin elections. This question is for Megan Wolf. What do you have in place to be able to tell the difference between an eligible voter and extra names that they didn't qualify or aren't eligible? People who your municipal clerk has said, we've reviewed a voter registration, and we say that this person is lawfully able to appear on the poll book. And looking for fraud cases, how many of those per election? Lot of general elections, there's less than 20. But if some type of fraud were committed, there is also audits that are done after the election. And so what they're doing in that audit is they're going to hand count those ballots and ensure that the total is the same as the total on the electronic tabulation equipment. So every single ballot cast in the state of Wisconsin has to have a paper trail. I am wondering why my father who passed away is still on an inactive role. Should he not be completely off because he is deceased? So so much for safe and secure elections. Are you go to pledge to stop that from happening this year? Yes or no. Are you gonna stop that? Anything about Clear. Answer the question Clear. History. The thing that I think the vast majority of election administrators have wished is, you know, not to be any part of the new story? We never wanted to be part of the story. But now, unfortunately, we are. We've had to add security four years ago. You could have shaken the hand of the person on the other side of the desk right there. And now you're behind glass. We had to add monitors and security cameras because in today's world, when people come to visit us, one of the first things that crosses our mind is, are you there to harm us? So those are things that have had to come into this process that weren't ever really contemplated before. That's hard to kind of, you know, accept that no matter how well we do our jobs, no matter how perfectly the election is run, no matter how many recounts we have, no matter how many audits of the election we have, there's still going to be these claims that are made. But as I look ahead to November, You know, if I'm being really frank, I worry about how the turmoil around my position, if it's going to be an easy way for those that wish to so distrust on elections, if it'll be an easy way for them to sort of cast doubt on the state of Wisconsin. And so I worry a lot about M I making the right decision by continuing to push back But I also think that we cannot set the precedent that harassing, bullying, threatening an election official is an effective way to get rid of them. We can not let that be the case, because then it's going to keep happening. Our country is in a very delicate place. It's almost scary. I don't allow myself to be afraid, but I do feel that, all the more reason why we have to do what we do as election administrators, to the best of ability, but more than that, to the letter of the law. I believe that democracy is in our hands is in our hands. I have missed him so much. But he would want us to keep going. He would want us to go big or go home. That's what he says, right? So that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna administer this election, like we've never administered an election in the spirit of perfction. I like what I do. I like the election process. I still believe I'm the best person to do this here for Marion County, Florida. And I'm a little obstinate. I don't want anybody to think they've run me out. A You can take a little bit more. The biggest challenge is in order for democracy to be true, people have to engage. Our next election is going to be a superhero theme. At the Polls on election day, if you want to wear a superhero T shirt, you are more than welcome. We are calling you guys defenders of democracy this time instead of poll workers because poll workers just not a good enough title for you anymore. You do way more than that. I don't know if there's going to be animosity or issues in the general election, but I I think anything that happens after the November election is not in my control. If people don't trust our counts, if people don't trust the transition. You're there until you see it, come on. The only control I have is to make sure our election is run properly and fairly. And the rest, that's up to the voters. 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