Election officials are sounding the alarm as President Donald Trump threatens to send in an army of lawyers to stop any ballot counting that takes place after election day and celebrates acts of violence committed by his supporters — and one reporter says it has state election officials fearful for their safety.
Politico reporter Tim Alberta told CNN host Alisyn Camerota during an interview that he’s talked with state election officials who are nervous about the president potentially inciting violence against them in the days after election night.
“I’ll tell you, Alisyn, the one group of people who are the most nervous about this, who I have spent a lot of time talking to lately, are county clerks, elections officials,” he said. “They are very nervous about what happens if Trump races out to an early lead on the evening of November 3rd and then, as they’re counting over the next 48 hours, Joe Biden overtakes the president and the president starts tweeting about what’s going on in these states.”
This could prompt many Trump supporters to take matters into their own hands, he said.
“His supporters start getting worked up, they want to know, yeah, where are these ballots coming from?” he said. “What happens then? This is a bit of a powder keg and there are a lot of reasons to be concerned about the potential for it exploding in the next 72 hours.”
Watch the interview below.