In US swing states, officials brace for conspiracy theories and violence

President Joe Biden helps a voter in a wheel chair at a polling station as he waits with others in line to cast his early-voting ballot for the 2024 general elections, Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in New Castle, Del. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

With the US election days just away, officials in the most competitive battleground states are bracing for misinformation, conspiracy theories, threats and possible violence.

In Philadelphia, Detroit and Atlanta, three of former President Donald Trump’s favorite targets for false claims of voter fraud, officials have fortified their operations against a repeat of the chaos of 2020. Philadelphia’s ballot-counting warehouse is now surrounded by fencing topped with barbed wire. In Detroit and Atlanta, some election offices are protected by bullet-proof glass.