Georgia is the first state to mandate election law training for police officers

Georgia has become the first state to mandate training in election law as a requirement for police officers to attain state certification, according to the state police’s standards council.

The new one-hour course for police trainees aims to ensure officers are well prepared and informed about enforcing the law effectively on Election Day, said Chris Harvey, deputy executive director for the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council.

“Cops just really need to know what are some of the basic ground rules around elections and voting, because they’re very specific,” he said. “In my opinion, the worst thing that can happen is if you have a partisan person or partisan force trying to manipulate the police, and the police do not have any idea what they’re supposed to be doing.”

Harvey suggested that battleground states like Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and others should also consider implementing this training mandate.

“Having seen the threats to election officials, having seen things happen to polling places, having myself been threatened during the 2020 election, I know that … it was likely that election officials were going to be calling the police,” Harvey said.

The new mandate comes as Lara Trump and the RNC have rolled out a new initiative to recruit poll watchers and train them to detect alleged fraud.

The training material covers Georgia’s law prohibiting the provision of food or drink to voters in line and the restriction on carrying guns within 150 feet of polling places.

Even though the mandate will not take effect until January, Harvey said training will be available within weeks.

Harvey collaborated with a nonpartisan group, Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, formed after the 2020 election, to develop this training and a pocket guide for police officers responding to polling problems. The training focuses on de-escalation techniques and nonthreatening conduct.

In addition, the training material highlights that police officers have a positive duty to prevent election interference and intimidation, meaning they can be criminally liable for not intervening in such situations. This obligation stems from both state and federal law.

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For instance, during the 2020 election, police in San Marcos, Texas, violated the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 by not intervening when Trump supporters harassed a Biden–Harris bus. San Marcos ultimately settled a suit over the affair for $175,000 in 2023.

“We don’t expect police to be experts in election law, but we expect them to know that there’s a place they can go to get these answers,” Harvey said. “Hopefully, it’ll click in. And hopefully, agencies will start to train officers with some of this material in the weeks and months leading up to the election.”