{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://ross.house.gov/2021/12/congresswoman-ross-condemns-ongoing-threats-poll-workers", "Congresswoman Ross Condemns Ongoing Threats to Poll Workers", "2021-12-08", "2021", "2021-12", "Democrat", "House", "NC", "Deborah K. Ross", "R000305", "ross.house.gov", "ross", "https://ross.house.gov/press-releases", "scraper", "Washington, D.C. \u2013 In a House Rules Committee hearing yesterday, Congresswoman Ross condemned ongoing threats to poll workers which have contributed to understaffing at polling locations in North Carolina and across the country. Ross filed two amendments to the Protecting Our Democracy Act (PODA), including one intended to help protect election officials by establishing a new taskforce at the Department of Justice.\n\nCongresswoman Ross said in her remarks: \u201cIn the wake of the 2020 election, poll workers and their families have been subjected to unprecedented levels of harassment, violent threats, and intimidation \u2013 all spurred by baseless conspiracies like \u2018Stop the Steal.\u2019 As a result, my home state of North Carolina and countless others have suffered critical shortages of poll workers. Ahead of the 2020 election, over one quarter of counties in North Carolina had understaffed polling sites.\n\n\u201cThis is simply unacceptable. A lack of poll workers threatens the right at the very core of our democracy \u2013 the right to vote. It creates a litany of barriers to the ballot box \u2013 from longer lines to fewer polling sites \u2013 that disproportionately cuts vulnerable North Carolinians and people of color out of the political process.\n\n\u201cMy amendment would establish a taskforce within the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute threats to election officials in collaboration with state and local governments. Threats to election officials are threats to our democracy and must be stopped.\u201d\n\nCongresswoman Ross\u2019 amendment will protect the poll workers and election officials who work tirelessly to ensure the free and fair administration of our elections.\n\nEnding Illegitimate White House Non-Disclosure Agreements: Rep. Ross also filed an amendment to prohibit warrantless Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA) that have no legitimate purpose and obstruct the public\u2019s interest in executive branch operations. In the Trump White House, staffers were required to sign NDAs that far exceeded the bounds of lawful public employee speech restrictions. These NDAs infringed on the First Amendment rights of both government employees and the press that reports on matters of public interest.\n\nHer full remarks are available here.\n\nThe Protecting Our Democracy, including Congresswoman Ross\u2019 amendments, will be considered on the House floor this week.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:37:48Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://ross.house.gov/2021/12/congresswoman-ross-condemns-ongoing-threats-poll-workers"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.909765949472785, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}