Arizona’s largest public school district is refusing to open its schools as polling sites amid threats against workers and a steady stream of misinformation from right-wing activists in the state.
Since President Joe Biden won Arizona by just over 10,000 votes in 2020, the state has become a national center of election denialism. Misinformation pushed by former President Donald Trump and Senate candidate Kari Lake has led to protests outside voting centers, harassment of election workers and a wealth of distrust among voters, the Associated Press reported.
The distrust has reached local elections too,
In a state Senate race last year, skeptical voters in Maricopa County engaged in confrontations at schools acting as polling stations, even though most of the voting was supposed to be done by mail, The Washington Post reported. Some voters confronted school staff and accused them of disenfranchising voters. The controversy was too much for the state’s largest public school district, Mesa Public Schools.
“I couldn’t imagine it in 2024. We just don’t know how to make it work,” Assistant Superintendent Scott Thompson told the Post.
In 2016, 37% of county polling locations in Maricopa County were schools. This year, schools make up just 14 percent of polling locations, according to data analysis from The Post.
For school officials, refusing to participate on election day is about safety. In 2022, there were many reports of people armed with guns watching over ballot boxes. One man showed up to a Phoenix school to vote with a firearm on him.
“We’re in the highest state of ambiguity, uncertainty and anxiety around school safety than we’ve ever been in my more than three decades in this field,” Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, told The Post.
The decision by many school leaders to withdraw their participation in elections comes as pro-Trump Republicans recently notched a key primary victory. Last week, Stephen Richer, a GOP official known for defending election integrity in Maricopa County, lost his primary election to state Rep. Justin Heap, who has called local elections a “laughing stock.” Heap will face Democrat Tim Stringham in November’s general election.