Snipers, barbed wire and drones - America braces for election violence

US authorities have prepared for days and possibly weeks of potential unrest following the presidential election, with security experts warning that political violence may be inevitable.

Eight-foot-high metal barriers have gone up around the White House and other key locations in Washington DC, where many Americans have been left fearful and anxious of a repeat of the deadly riot in January 2021, when supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol to disrupt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win.

Capitol police have increased staffing as part of a security plan that began weeks ago, while shops, restaurants and other buildings across the city have boarded up their windows.

“There will be no tolerance for violence in our city, no destruction or any unlawful behavior,” Washington Police Chief Pamela Smith said on Monday, according to The Washington Post. “We will not tolerate the destruction of property, and we will not tolerate threats to public safety as well as this election process.”

Attorneys general across the country released a joint statement today urging a “peaceful transfer of power”.

“We call upon every American to vote, participate in civil discourse and, above all, respect the integrity of the democratic process,” the attorneys general from 47 states and three US territories wrote. “Violence has no place in the democratic process; we will exercise our authority to enforce the law against any illegal acts that threaten it.”

Larry Krasner, the Pennsylvania district attorney, said: “I want people to be reassured that … everybody in this city is working and has been working for months to make sure that there will be nothing tough about that experience and nothing to fear in that experience.

“Anybody who thinks it’s time to insult, to deride, to mistreat, to threaten people: F*** around and find out. We do have the cuffs, we do have the jail cells, we do have the Philly juries and we have the state prisons.”

The risk of violence is not just limited to the capital city. Several states have ramped up security measures to protect the public and poll workers, and officials say they are better prepared for any disruption at centres where votes are counted.

The US National Guard is on standby in at least 19 states to help maintain peace. These include battlegrounds states such as Pennsylvania, Nevada and North Carolina, among others, which are likely to be the flashpoints for unrest, according to the health and security firm International SOS. It also warned that the highest risk scenario it outlined was the most likely one, The Times reported.

It detailed some scenarios that could increase the risk of post-election escalation, such as a narrow margin of victory, the length of the period of uncertainty before the result is known, inflammatory statements by political figures who refuse to accept the election outcome and misinformation that peddles fake narratives, especially around claims of electoral fraud.

In Arizona, barbed wire atop iron fencing surrounds the Maricopa County vote tabulation centre in Phoenix, which was at the centre of election conspiracy theories in 2020 after Trump spread unfounded claims of voter fraud. He lost the state to Biden by fewer than 11,000 votes in that election.

Maricopa County Sheriff Russ Skinner said his department would be on “high alert” for threats and violence, with armed security guards and officers in plain clothes patrolling the centre. Drones would monitor polling stations and snipers would be on standby for deployment if violence appeared likely, he added.

“We will have a lot of resources out there, a lot of staff, a lot of equipment,” he said.

In Georgia, panic buttons have been installed in Cobb County, connecting poll managers to local police, while new offices in Los Angeles County in California, and Durham County in North Carolina, have bulletproof glass, security cameras and doors that only open for badge-wearers.

Many Americans fear the worst. According to a recent poll by AP-NORC, 76 per cent of voters said they were at least somewhat worried about violence aimed at overturning the election results, including 42 per cent who were “extremely” or “very” concerned.

Michael Rogers, chief security analyst at International SOS, said it was unlikely that the US would see the kind of violence that erupted in January 2021. “Ultimately, the authorities are doing a lot to make sure that something like that does not happen again,” he told Metro.