Washington governor activates National Guard against election-related violence

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) activated the National Guard to be on stand-by in the event it is asked to support local law enforcement and the Washington State Patrol during election week, a press release issued Friday said.

The National Guard will be activated from Nov. 4 to 7 until just after midnight, according to the release. The adjutant general will determine how many members of the Guard will be called. 

"This is a purely precautionary measure taken in response to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s nationwide warnings regarding threats to election infrastructure and other recent activities that have occurred in southwestern Washington," the release read.

In a letter activating the National Guard, Inslee cited recent instances of election-related unrest leading up to election day.

Last week, two ballot boxes were burned in Oregon after an incendiary device was placed inside a ballot box. In Washington state, nearly 500 ballots were recovered after an incendiary device was placed inside a ballot box, causing them to burn, The Associated Press reported. 

Still, some national security experts told The Hill last week that a repeat of election violence to the scale of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection is unlikely.

Amy Cooter, an expert at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism of the Middlebury Institute, said that while the threat of election violence is a concern, the conditions for it appear to be lower than in late 2020. Though, the situation could change quickly, she said.

“These landscapes are so volatile that [the assessment] today could dramatically change based on something that happens later,” she had told The Hill. “But as of right now, I am most concerned with sort of small outbreaks of violence, not like we saw at January 6.”