RELEASE: Ahead of Early Voting, Gottheimer Announces Actions to Protect Election Integrity

Above: Gottheimer announces his Election Integrity Strategy.

FORT LEE, NJ – Today, Friday, October 23, 2026, Congressman Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5) announced the next steps in his Election Integrity Strategy: bipartisan federal actions to protect poll workers, ballot drop boxes, and the peaceful transfer of power, with early voting set to begin in New Jersey tomorrow, October 24. 

“The most sacred right our Constitution affords us is the right to vote. Early voting starts in New Jersey tomorrow. We cannot allow anyone or anything — at home or from abroad — to interfere with our elections. I’m announcing new federal actions to protect our poll workers, our ballot boxes, and our elections,” said Congressman Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5).

Watch Gottheimer’s full remarks here.

Gottheimer’s Election Integrity Strategy includes three actions:

• Introducing the bipartisan Election Worker and Polling Place Protection Act, with Congressman Don Bacon (NE-2), to expand federal protections for volunteers, the people who supply and maintain election equipment, and the family members of election officials.
• Introducing the bipartisan Ballot Box Protection Act, with Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis (NY-11), which makes explicit that damaging or destroying a ballot drop box is a federal crime, giving prosecutors clear legal ground to quickly bring cases in federal court. 
• Leading a bipartisan letter with Congressman Bacon to ensure the continued peaceful transition of power. Seventeen Republicans and Democrats have signed so far, pledging to safeguard the integrity of the House, defend the state certification process, recognize the winners each state certifies under its own law, support adding every state’s certified winners to the House Clerk’s roll on the first day of the new Congress, and oppose any attempt to refuse or delay the seating of a Member-elect.
• Supports early voting and extending the window to vote, voting by mail, and secure mobile voting.
• Supports multilingual voting information at polling locations.
• Pushing to increase Help America Vote Act funding to New Jersey so every county has the polling locations and machines it needs.
• Opposes new barriers to voting, such as requiring a passport to register
• Warns that foreign adversaries are using AI and social media to undermine American elections, including Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. 

Gottheimer, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Co-Chairman of the 9/11 Commission Review Task Force, witnessed the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol from the House Chamber. In 2022, working with Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) and the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, he led the House effort to pass the bipartisan, bicameral Electoral Count Reform Act, which is now law and closed the loopholes extremists tried to use to subvert the 2020 election.

 “Protecting the integrity of our elections is essential to maintaining the public’s trust in our democratic process. Every American deserves to know that their vote will be counted and protected from interference. Those who intentionally destroy ballots or damage ballot boxes must be held accountable. I’m proud to once again join Congressman Gottheimer in introducing this bipartisan legislation to safeguard our elections and ensure every lawful vote is counted,” said Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis.

Nationally, 38 percent of local election officials report experiencing threats, harassment, or abuse for doing their jobs, and about one in six said they had faced threats of violence. The Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force reviewed more than 2,000 reports of threats and, by fall 2024, had charged just 20 people. In 2024, ballot drop boxes in Oregon and Washington State were set on fire, and the ballots inside were burned.

Last November, bomb threats forced polling places in Paterson, Ewing, and Bergen County to close temporarily, with additional threats at locations in Ocean, Monmouth, Essex, and Middlesex counties. Voters were redirected, officials later determined there was no credible threat, and a juvenile was arrested. 

Gottheimer was joined by Senator Gordon Johnson, Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco, Bergen County Clerk John Hogan, Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, Fort Lee Councilwoman Ila Kasofsky, Co-Executive Director of Amber Reedof AAPI NJ, and Fort Lee Councilmen Peter J. Suh and Harvey Sohmer.

Below: Gottheimer announces his Election Integrity Strategy.

Gottheimer’s remarks as prepared for delivery:

Good afternoon. Thank you for welcoming us here to the Fort Lee Community Center.

I want to thank you all for your important work protecting our election workers, ballot boxes, and our democracy. 

The most sacred right our Constitution affords us is the right to vote. That right is core to our democracy, our freedom, and fundamental to how we govern and to the peaceful transfer of power. 

It’s also a reminder, that in the United States of America, the power is with the people. It’s a gift that many countries don’t afford. Thomas Jefferson wrote that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Voting is how we give that consent. It’s a chance for every American to have their voice heard, and to hold our leaders accountable. It’s why Lincoln rightly declared that “the ballot is stronger than the bullet.” In short, the right to vote at the polling booth right here or at the ballot box. It’s a huge privilege – and an enormous responsibility.

That’s exactly why we are here today. 

Early voting starts in New Jersey tomorrow. We cannot allow anyone – or anything – at home or from abroad – to interfere with our elections.  Today, I’m announcing new federal actions to protect our poll workers, our ballot boxes, and our elections.

Let me start with the poll workers who, beginning with early voting tomorrow, will help ensure we have free and fair elections.  Thousands of poll workers here in New Jersey and across America are about to take on that critical responsibility of overseeing the voting process in the 2026 election. 

Unfortunately, if the past is prologue, many of them will face unprecedented threats just for doing the job. We saw it right here in our own state last November. Emailed bomb threats forced polling places in northern and central New Jersey to close temporarily, in Paterson, in Ewing, and even here in Bergen County — along with threats at locations in Ocean, Monmouth, Essex, and Middlesex counties. Voters were redirected. Officials later determined there was no credible threat, and a juvenile was arrested. The disruption was real, and so was the fear. We cannot allow that to happen again. 

According to the Brennan Center, thirty-eight percent of local election officials report experiencing threats, harassment, or abuse for doing their jobs. In their latest survey, about one in six said they’d faced threats of violence.

When threats come, accountability too often doesn’t. The Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force reviewed more than two thousand reports of threats. By fall 2024, it had charged just twenty people. That’s absurd.

It should come as no surprise that experienced poll workers are quitting, and fewer people are willing to sign up. We are losing the very people who make our elections work, at the moment their work matters most.

Our poll workers and election officials are patriots. They serve not a particular party, but their fellow citizens and country, and they’re protecting the right to vote – and I’m taking steps today to protect them. The voices of Americans should echo in polling places, not the voices of bullies and extremists.

But, given online chatter, direct words from the President and his team, and what’s happened in recent elections, far too many Americans have lost faith in our system. 

Many tell me that they lie awake at night worried that ICE or others from the Administration will interfere with the upcoming elections, or attempt, after the fact, to undermine the election results, including refusing to seat duly elected members of Congress. 

It is imperative that Congress take every step to help restore our faith in the elections. As a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Co-Chairman of the 9/11 Commission Review Task Force, I understand what is at stake when the public trust is undermined. I witnessed it first-hand on January 6, 2021, in the Chamber of the United States House of Representatives.

I was in the House Chamber, and saw, with my own eyes, holding a gas mask, lawless thugs from the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, including some from our own state, breach the United States Capitol. These insurrectionists used American flagpoles to beat police officers. 

But, that night, after the chaos, we went back to work. We refused to let the insurrectionists thwart the will of the American people. Democrats and Republicans, together, finished the job and certified the election. I stood on the House floor next to my friend Tom Reed, then a Republican Congressman from New York and, at the time, my co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus. He crossed the aisle to stand with us.

That evening, I told the House: “Today, a group of lawless thugs sought to upend the Constitution and the peaceful transition of power because they didn’t like the outcome of the Presidential election.” But their attempt to obstruct democracy failed. “Their insurrection was foiled.”

Election denialism not only undermines our democracy; it also leads to the threats and violence we are talking about today. We cannot, and will not, tolerate election denialism or unrest. And no one should fear for their safety just for making sure ballots are counted fairly.  

As I said, the threats don’t only come from a mob. There are threats coming from the current Administration to intimidate voters at polling locations. We will not let them. Our foreign adversaries are also working overtime, using AI, social media, and other online tools to try to undermine our elections. We will take every action to stop them. Ensuring secure, accessible, and reliable elections is fundamental to our national security and to the health of our democracy.

That’s why I’m proud to announce the next steps in my Election Integrity Strategy: to protect the right to vote, to protect election and poll workers, and to protect the very fabric of our democratic system from threats at home and abroad.

First, I’m reintroducing, with Congressman Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska, the bipartisan Election Worker and Polling Place Protection Act. It will expand protections for election workers and polling locations against threats of violence and harassment.

It protects volunteers, the people who supply and maintain election equipment, and the family members of election officials. 

It covers threats against property, not just people. And, it makes it a federal crime to intentionally damage a polling place or a tabulation center.

It’s crystal clear: harassing, intimidating, or threatening an election official in a general or primary election is a crime, punishable by up to six months in jail or a $2,500 fine.

Second, I’m introducing my bipartisan Ballot Box Protection Act with Rep. Nicole Malliotakis from New York, which will make it explicit: damaging or destroying a ballot drop box is a federal crime.

Because it has happened. In 2024, in Oregon and Washington State, lawless thugs set fire to ballot drop boxes and burned the ballots voters had dropped in those boxes. One official called it a “direct attack on democracy.” That’s directly interfering with the right to vote.

In Bergen County, we have more than 35 of these ballot drop boxes. These are key to voting – especially given the President’s threats to the postal system and vote by mail. The disgusting attempts to burn ballots and erase the votes of countless citizens are un-American, and anyone who tries to interfere with our elections should be severely punished.

We need this legislation so there is legal ground to quickly prosecute, in federal court, those who commit these anti-American, anti-democratic acts. If you burn a ballot drop box, you will face a $20,000 fine for each ballot you burn and up to 20 years in prison. So, to the lawless thugs who are considering interfering with our democracy: don’t even think about it.

Third, and finally, I’m leading a bipartisan letter with Congressman Bacon to ensure the continued peaceful transition of power, and to put every one of us on the record.

This is work I’ve been doing for years. In 2022, with Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, working closely with the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, I led in the House the bipartisan, bicameral Electoral Count Reform Act. It is now the law of the land. It closed the loopholes extremists tried to use to subvert the 2020 election and to pressure the Vice President to undermine the election. There never should have been a question that a Vice President, or a slate of “fake electors,” could commandeer an election. Now, because of that law, the Vice President is purely ceremonial – he or she has no power in the election process.  

In 2024, Congressman Bacon and I led the bipartisan Unity Commitment, signed by thirty-four Members of Congress, to respect the outcome of the presidential election, regardless of how it landed.

Now we’re doing it again for 2026. Seventeen of us have signed so far, Republicans and Democrats. In this letter, Members of Congress promise to safeguard the integrity of the House of Representatives, honor the votes of the citizens, and protect the 2026 congressional elections.

We pledge to defend the state certification process, including legitimate contestation within a state according to law, from outside interference. We pledge to recognize the winners each state certifies under its own law. We pledge to support the right of every state’s certified winners to be added to the House Clerk’s roll on the first day of the new Congress in January, as federal law requires. And, we pledge to oppose any attempt to refuse or delay the seating of a Member-elect who presents a validly issued election certificate. We’ve urged, and will continue to urge, all of our colleagues to join us.

Now more than ever, with domestic and foreign interference and threats to our democracy, it is critical that Americans are able to fully participate in our electoral process. Especially after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, we in Congress must protect the right to vote and ensure every citizen can participate. Voting is the bedrock of our democracy, and protecting that right is why Congress initially passed the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA: to strengthen election systems, ensure access for every eligible voter, and invest in states like New Jersey to increase election access, resources, security, and integrity. 

I’ve pushed to increase that funding to New Jersey, so that all counties have what they need – from polling locations to machines — to make exercising the right to vote, for those qualified, as easy as possible.  

Protecting the vote also means making it possible to vote. Red or blue, win or lose, if you’re eligible to cast a ballot, we should make it as easy as possible, not put up barriers.

That’s why I’ve been a big supporter of early voting and of extending the window to vote. It gives working families, seniors, and folks juggling jobs and kids a real chance to make their voices heard.

It’s why I support voting by mail, and why I won’t let anyone mess with the Post Office to slow it down – and why I spoke out vociferously when the Administration directed the Postmaster General to interfere with vote-by-mail ballots. 

It’s why we shouldn’t throw up new roadblocks, like requiring a passport just to register. Eligible Americans who have voted their whole lives shouldn’t be turned away because they’ve never owned one.

It’s why I believe we should ensure voting literature and information at voting locations is multilingual. 

It’s why I’ve supported secure mobile voting, so that more voters can participate in our elections. 

It’s why, as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I’ve been focused for months, leading up to November, on election security and holding the administration’s feet to the fire. We cannot allow foreign governments or actors, whether that’s from Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran, to interfere with our elections. 

Free and fair means two things: every eligible voter can cast a ballot, and every ballot cast is counted securely. We can, and we must, do both.

Our founders understood what was at stake. As he left the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked what kind of government they had given us. His answer: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Those leaders fought to protect our flag and our vote. We can’t let anyone intimidate us out of that inheritance. Not on our watch.

Without democracy, we would not have a country. So, again, I want to thank our courageous election workers who keep showing up, despite the efforts of those cowardly enough to try to intimidate them. 

And I want to thank those who protect our ballots at drop boxes and at voting stations. We must always get their backs and show up for them, so they can work without fear as they uphold our voting process. That’s the strength of America and of our values.

With the legislation I’m announcing today, we’re taking a stand so that every voter can cast their ballot without fear, and every election worker can serve without threats. Because the right to vote is sacred, and it is our duty to defend it. There should be nothing partisan about this.

As a reminder, go to NJ.gov/vote to find your polling location. Early voting runs between 10 am and 8 pm on every day except Sunday, when the polls close at 6 pm. 

In the greatest country in the world, when we put country over party, and fight to protect our election workers, our elections, and our democracy, I know that our best days will always be ahead of us.

May God bless you, your families, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.