Several states moved to restrict guns at polling places this year. Two succeeded

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Several states moved to restrict guns at polling places this year. Two succeeded

Election workers receive training, prepare ballots for mailing, and do testing at the Reo Elections Office on October 3, 2024 in Lansing, MI.

Two more states have passed bills restricting guns at polling places since The Trace reported in March that several states were considering such measures. 

Colorado, which already banned openly carrying firearms at voting locations, extended its prohibition to the possession of concealed weapons. In Massachusetts, a new law bars anyone from possessing a firearm within 150 feet of a polling site.

The measures reflect intensifying concern about shootings and voter intimidation as an election season already punctuated by violence drew to a tumultuous close. 

The Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force charged two people on October 21 with threatening to harm or kill election workers. One of the suspects was a Pennsylvania man accused of texting death threats to a party official who was recruiting volunteer poll watchers—a standard practice in every election.

Police arrested an Arizona man a day later for allegedly firing several shots at a Democratic Party campaign office in Tempe. Prosecutors said the man had more than 120 guns and more than 250,000 rounds of ammunition in his home, leading them to believe he was planning a mass shooting.

On October 28, ballot boxes in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, were set on fire with what law enforcement described as incendiary devices. 

“There is no question political violence is on the rise,” said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, which tracks election-related extremist activity. “The fewer guns we introduce into this environment, the better off everyone involved with making this election happen will be.”

The Colorado and Massachusetts measures were among 10 polling-site gun restrictions being considered by states this year. Six of those bills—in Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Vermont—did not make it to a final vote. Legislation to extend the radius of Virginia’s ban from 40 to 100 feet passed both chambers of the General Assembly but was vetoed by Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, who expressed Second Amendment concerns. 

California already banned guns at polling places, but in September, Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill allowing voters to sue violators for intimidation.

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The Trace

States Ban Guns at Polls as Officials Step Up Election Security

Graphic showing states that limit guns at polling places.

Twenty-two states and Washington D.C. explicitly limit firearms at voting sites. The laws vary in scope: In 15 states and D.C., civilians can neither openly nor concealed carry a firearm at polling locations. The remaining seven states only prohibit one or the other.

Ten states—Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Washington, in addition to Colorado and Massachusetts—passed their laws over the past two years, in step with increasing concerns about election-related violence. 

On November 1, the FBI and Election Threats Task Force officials launched a national command center in Washington D.C. and several other cities to monitor and combat threats of violence on Election Day, according to the Department of Justice. The plan was to close the center after a week, but it could remain open longer if violent threats persist. 

State and local governments have also made plans to protect against potential election-related violence this November. In a 2024 survey of almost 1,000 election officials by the Brennan Center for Justice, roughly 40% of respondents said they had enhanced the physical security of their polling sites since 2020. 

Georgia officials installed panic buttons at polling locations to alert law enforcement to threats, and in Arizona, law enforcement has assigned snipers to the rooftops of a Maricopa County voting tabulation site and deployed drones to spot potential attackers. In other states, election officials have reinforced windows to make them shatterproof and hired armed security guards. 

Brian Michael Jenkins, a senior adviser at the RAND Corporation who authored a report about addressing threats of political violence in this year’s elections, said polling-site gun bans are an important part of guarding voters against intimidation and preventing hostile interactions from combusting into deadly violence.

He recalled an incident from October 24, when a Texas man punched a 69-year-old poll worker after being asked to remove his Donald Trump hat, which violated a state law against displaying campaign memorabilia in polling locations. “The concern is if somebody there is armed, that can easily escalate into a shooting,” Jenkins said. 

“Given an angry, polarized population that is already very vocal about not accepting election results and willing to use violence if their candidate doesn’t win,” Jenkins said, “I generally favor the idea that we try to keep guns out of the equation.”

Republican state lawmakers have generally opposed the polling-site gun restrictions. Bills in Colorado and Massachusetts passed without a single GOP vote. In New Mexico, the next most recent state to pass a ban, Republicans in the state Senate signed on to the legislation only after the party’s caucus chair, Mark Moores, added an amendment exempting concealed carry permit holders.

“This is the right thing to do in this environment,” Moores said after the Senate unanimously approved the bill.

In a 2022 nationwide survey of voting-age adults, Beirich’s organization, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, found that 63% of respondents supported banning guns at the polls, including more than half of all Republicans surveyed. Voters said they feared that firearms could lead to both intimidation and shootings. 

Beirich said the survey demonstrates bipartisan consensus around the bans. “If it mitigates the possibility of somebody firing a gun and it makes voters feel safer,” she said, “then it’s something we should do.”

This story was produced by The Trace and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.

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