Palm Beach County Election Chief Wendy Link on Pressure, Threatening Emails and a Toss-Up District

Palm Beach County's election chief is heading into Tuesday's midterms under the kind of pressure that used to belong only to battleground-state officials, NPR reported Monday, Nov. 2. Wendy Link, the supervisor of elections for Palm Beach County, a county that includes part of a toss-up congressional district this year, says her office still regularly gets "love letters," as she calls them, but she is not as worried for her own safety as she has been at different points in the job, NPR reported.

"We get emails saying, you know, 'We're going to send our army to arrest you, you'll be spending your time in Guantanamo Bay,'" Link told NPR. "So do I love reading some of the emails? No. Do I think some of them are clearly intended to intimidate me? Yes. But am I reaching out and asking for a security detail? No." On the whole, NPR reported, the threat environment for voting officials seems calmer than in the period following 2020, but this year's races deciding control of the House and Senate are spread around the country, so local officials in places like Iowa, Alaska, New York and Kansas may find themselves in the national spotlight for the first time.

Tina Barton, a former Michigan city clerk who received death threats after a 2020 election-night file error that did not affect actual votes, now helps officials prepare through the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, NPR reported. The organization doubled the number of trainings it led this year compared with 2024. "It can happen whether you're a red state or a blue state. Controversy can find you," Barton said. "All it takes is some ballot equipment going down, a problem with ballots jamming, a website going down." Her message to officials in competitive districts, NPR reported, is simple: "I've told them all, you better be on your game."