S. 2124 — Election Worker Protection Act of 2025

This section defines key terms for purposes of the Act, including (1) "election worker" as an election official, poll worker, or election volunteer involved in administering an election for federal office; and (2) "personally identifiable information" as having the meaning of "restricted personal information" in 18 U.S.C. §119 (i.e., an individual's Social Security number, home address, home phone number, mobile phone number, personal email, or home fax number).

This section establishes a new grant program under the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), administered by the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), under which the EAC must make grants to eligible states (or political subdivisions if a state declines to apply) not later than one year after enactment, subject to appropriations, for recruiting and training individuals to serve as poll workers and election volunteers for public elections. Grants are allocated pro rata based on each recipient's voting age population as a percentage of the national total (using latest Census Bureau data); grantees must (1) use EAC materials on successful practices as an interactive training tool and develop programs with adult learning experts, ensuring culturally competent service delivery for voters with limited English proficiency, diverse backgrounds, or disabilities; (2) provide assurances that funds supplement (not supplant) other funds, report on recruited/trained individuals, and prioritize recruitment of youth/minors (e.g., at schools and colleges) and diverse groups (by race, ethnicity, disability); and (3) submit activity reports to the EAC within 180 days after the final grant, with EAC reports due to congressional committees on Rules and Administration/Administration and Appropriations.

This section directs the Attorney General, not later than 180 days after enactment, to review training resources provided to federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies and to ensure that the Department of Justice offers programs including training and resources to assist state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies in understanding, detecting, deterring, and investigating threats to election workers. The section further requires the Attorney General to make training available to Department of Justice prosecutors and Assistant United States Attorneys on countering and prosecuting such threats.

This section directs the Attorney General to establish, not later than one year after the date of enactment, a grant program to protect the personally identifiable information (PII) of election workers. Grants are available to states or units of local government (as defined in 34 U.S.C. 10251), or their agencies, that operate state or local databases or registries containing such PII, with such sums as necessary authorized for uses including (1) creating programs to redact or remove election workers' PII from public records; (2) expanding existing programs; (3) developing protocols, procedures, and policies to prevent PII release; (4) modifying databases and registries; and (5) developing confidential opt-out systems. The Comptroller General must submit to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, beginning two years after enactment and biennially thereafter, a report on amounts spent by grant recipients (based on their reports due to the Comptroller General within 180 days of receiving funds).

This section establishes a new federal criminal offense (18 U.S.C. §612) prohibiting any person from intimidating, threatening, coercing, or attempting to do so against an election worker—defined as an election official, poll worker, or election volunteer for a federal election—with intent to interfere with or retaliate for the performance of official duties. Violations are punishable by a fine of up to $100,000, imprisonment for up to five years, or both. The section further directs the Attorney General, acting through the FBI Director, to assign a special agent to each FBI field office to investigate threats against election workers.

This section expands the criminal prohibitions applicable to federal elections under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993—which criminalize knowing and willful voter intimidation and certain forms of election fraud, including the handling of false voter registrations or ballots—to also prohibit depriving or defrauding state residents of a fair election process by processing or scanning ballots, or tabulating, canvassing, or certifying voting results. (Violators are subject to fine under title 18, imprisonment for not more than five years, or both.)

This section expands the prohibition on disclosing personally identifiable information (i.e., doxxing) about certain protected federal personnel to include election officials, poll workers, or election volunteers in connection with an election for federal office. (As background, current law criminalizes such disclosures when made with the intent to threaten, harass, or incite violence against specified federal employees, officers, judges, jurors, witnesses, and their family members.)

This section establishes voter protection requirements (new sec. 303A of the Help America Vote Act of 2002) permitting a state or local election official to remove a poll observer from a polling location or vote processing site for a federal election upon a reasonable basis to believe the observer has engaged in, or imminently will engage in, intimidation or deceptive practices prohibited by federal law or has disrupted, or will disrupt, voting, ballot processing, tabulation, canvassing, or certification. (Thus, the provision does not preclude removal for other reasons and applies to elections for federal office occurring on or after the date of enactment.) This section further requires the Election Assistance Commission to adopt voluntary guidance on these requirements by January 1, 2026 (new deadline in sec. 311(b)(4) of HAVA), and makes conforming amendments to reflect the new section and a clerical amendment to the Act's table of contents.