(DENVER) — When Josh Zygielbaum left the Marine Corps more than ten years ago, he thought he would never have to wear body armor again. But now Zygielbaum is back to wearing a bulletproof vest as a Colorado county clerk — one of the many extreme measures he says he’s been forced to take as the state has emerged as a battleground in the shadowy world of election conspiracies.

Considered by many experts to be a leader in election security due to its up-to-date voting machines, its policy of recording every vote on a paper ballot, and its rigorous post-election audits, Colorado has been described by some election experts as the “gold standard for elections.” Yet despite its strong reputation, the state has recently been targeted by election denial groups as a center for baseless accusations that election workers helped steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump.

As a result, election officials and poll workers in several Colorado counties have donned bulletproof vests and undergone active shooter training for their own safety.

Zygielbaum and other officials ABC News spoke with pointed to Tina Peters, an embattled county clerk in Mesa County, accusing her of being one of the leading figures fueling the false and baseless conspiracy theories that have put Colorado in the spotlight.

Peters, who announced in February that she is running for Colorado secretary of state, has been under investigation by the FBI since November for her alleged involvement in a security breach of the Mesa County election system, according to a statement by the Colorado attorney general. In March, she was indicted by a grand jury on 11 counts of election tampering and misconduct, after authorities say the election software she used for her county wound up in the hands of a consultant, and screenshots of the software appeared on right-wing websites.

“Using a grand jury to formalize politically-motivated accusations against candidates is tactic long employed by the Democrat Party,” Peters said in a statement posted on her campaign website. “Using legal muscle to indict political opponents during an election isn’t new strategy, but it’s easier to execute when you have a district attorney who despises President Trump and any constitutional conservative like myself who continues to demand all election evidence be made available to the public.”

For the past several months, Peters has been joined by attorney John Eastman, a key architect of former President Donald Trump’s legal effort to overturn the 2020 election, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a Trump confidant, at election denial events in the state.

“I came to Colorado today because you have here in Colorado the key to the whole nation,” Lindell said at a rally in April, “because you had a great county clerk, Tina Peters, (who) did her job.”

“For people that say we need to look forward — we’ve got to fix what happened in 2020,” Peters told the crowd.

In a similar event in February hosted by FEC United, a conservative group with a militia wing, attendees including Peters and Eastman cheered as self-described election denier Sean Smith said that he had evidence of criminal election conduct by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold.

“You may know me as the number-one most dangerous election denier in Colorado,” Smith told the crowd.

The event spurred Griswold to make a report to the Colorado State Patrol after Smith said that “if you’re involved in election fraud, then you deserve to hang.”

“We are still seeing the effects of the 2020 election,” Griswold said in a statement to ABC News. “Extreme elected officials and right-wing political insiders continue to spread the Big Lie and election conspiracies.”

As voting officials gear up for the upcoming midterm elections, “the potential for violence that we face is very real,” Zygielbaum said.

Concerns about their staffers’ safety have spurred county officials to adopt a variety of safety protocols. Zygielbaum told ABC News that employees in his Adams County office have been asked not take the same route home on a daily basis.

He said his county has also partnered with the Department of Homeland Security to review their facilities, and is redesigning their elections office “so that voters and individuals who are not employees” cannot go inside the building. In addition, the county is working closely with law enforcement at the state, local and federal level, and has a direct line to the FBI and Terrorism Task Force.

Secretary Griswold confirmed to ABC News that her office arranged for counties to receive a physical threat assessment from DHS, as well as nearly $130,000 in grant funding to make security upgrades.

In the city of Denver, clerk Paul López says he had to move his office away from a first-floor window because it was a security risk.

“I think that folks who think they can intimidate election workers and try to stop us from being able to do our job are absolutely incorrect,” López told ABC News. “We will defend our democracy, and we will do it in a way that inspires people to come to the polls and not scare them away. “

In Chaffee County, county clerk Lori Mitchell has faced personal threats since 2020, with one incident over the summer traumatizing her to the point where she almost decided against running for reelection.

“I saw somebody lay their right hand over their left arm and pull what looked like a gun to me,” Mitchell told ABC News. “And so I ducked in my car.”

“It ended up being a squirt gun,” Mitchell said. “But it was still one of the most frightening days of my life.”

Now, Mitchell and other officials in her office speak with constituents through bulletproof glass. To prepare for the midterms, the county is working closely with law enforcement to enact additional measures to protect election workers.

“Colorado is one of the current epicenters of the Stop the Steal movement,” said Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association. “And so we are concerned and very worried about the influence and pressure being put on election officials. They are incredibly understaffed and overworked, and now they have to deal with the emotional toll that comes from knowing that you have to do things to protect yourself.”

According to Crane, the state has seen people “putting in open-records requests to get personal information of poll workers and election judges.”

Crane said that as the state prepares for the upcoming midterms, the attorney general and district attorneys have been working with law enforcement organizations to prepare for possible hostile situations against election officials.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers have passed a bill that would ban the open carry of guns at polling places and create new criminal penalties for people who threaten election workers.

A similar bill that is part of a legislative package to increase security for state and local officials was also advanced by a state legislative panel last month. That legislation also includes a bill aimed at cracking down on the attempted sabotage of voting equipment — described by officials as a direct response to allegations against Peters, the Mesa County clerk.

“No one should have to worry about the safety of themselves or their families when serving as an election administrator,” said Griswold.

“By protecting our election workers and officials, we safeguard our democracy,” she said. “We must do what we can to protect and retain our top-quality election administrators at the state, county and local level.”

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(NEW YORK) — Arkansas Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Sunday that he opposes a national ban on abortion because it would take away the authority of a state like his that is poised to immediately ban abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court.

“I think that’s inconsistent with what we’ve been fighting for for decades, which is that we wanted the Roe vs. Wade reversed and the authority to return to the states,” Hutchinson told ABC’s “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz. “So, as a matter of principle, that’s where it should be.”

Hutchinson appeared on “This Week” just days after an unprecedented leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion on abortion cast a new spotlight on what could happen if the high court overturns Roe v. Wade.

The document, obtained by Politico, though not final shows the Supreme Court’s conservative majority of justices are ready to overturn nearly 50 years of established abortion rights precedent through its decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case out of Mississippi that the court heard last year. A ruling is expected by the end of June.

Raddatz noted that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told USA Today that it’s possible Republicans will pursue a national ban. Raddatz pressed the two-term governor, asking, “Will you oppose that?”

“If you look at a constitutional or a national standard, that goes against that thrust of the states having prerogative,” replied Hutchinson, chair of the National Governors Association. “And secondly, I think there’s some constitutional issues of a national standard as well as to what is the authority of the Constitution to enact that.”

In March 2021, Hutchinson signed a bill that prohibits abortion in all cases except to save the life of the mother. Cases involving rape and incest are not considered exceptions under the law, something Hutchinson said he did not completely agree with at the time.

The bill also charges anyone who performs a non-approved abortion with a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The measure, however, has not been enacted into state law. A U.S. district court judge in Arkansas issued an order in July 2021 temporarily blocking Arkansas’ near-complete abortion ban while a lawsuit against the measure proceeds. Currently, abortions are allowed in Arkansas up to 22 weeks gestation.

The law would only go into effect if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

Arkansas is one of 26 states certain or likely to impose abortion bans if the landmark case is overturned, including 13 with trigger bans tied to the decision, according to an analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research and policy organization. Arkansas and four other states have proposed near-complete bans on abortion, according to the institute.

A U.S. district court judge in Arkansas issued an order in July 2021 temporarily blocking Arkansas’ near-complete abortion ban while a lawsuit against the measure proceeds.

“What would you tell those women in your state who cannot afford to travel to get an abortion, who cannot afford to raise a child or those who have been raped or the victims of incest?” Raddatz asked.

Hutchinson replied that “in terms of Arkansas law, our law simply expresses the will of the people of Arkansas.”

“In Arkansas, it’s a policy of Arkansas that we protect the life of the unborn,” said the 71-year-old Hutchinson, who is exploring a 2024 run for president. “And so yes, if Roe v. Wade is reversed, then we will have a trigger law in place to protect the life of the unborn.”

Raddatz pushed back, saying, “I want to go back to my question about those women.”

“What would you say to those women who seek an abortion, who don’t have the money to travel, who don’t have the money to raise a child. What would you say to them?”

Hutchinson responded, “Well, first of all, that’s where your heart goes out to them.”

“I’ve had to deal with those very difficult circumstances of rape and incest as governor and it’s difficult. And so, you have to understand that,” Hutchinson said. “You have to provide services. And I believe that we would want to increase the services for maternal health, to increase the services for adoption services as well. So, we want to invest in those areas that will help those women with very difficult circumstances of the pregnancy.”

When he signed Arkansas’ near-complete abortion ban, Hutchinson issued a statement saying he “would have preferred the legislation to include the exceptions for rape and incest.”

He told Raddatz on Sunday, that “even though we have the trigger law, I expect those exceptions to be a significant part of the debate in the future, even though we’re going to immediately go to restrict abortions with the exception of the life of the mother.”

“Why do you support those exceptions?” Raddatz asked.

The governor responded that “those exceptions are what generally the public has insisted upon as being reasonable exceptions to abortion limitations.”

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(NEW YORK) — A leaked draft opinion showing the Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade sparked nationwide outrage and panic among abortion rights advocates. And for women who already experienced challenges and restrictions in accessing reproductive care in their states, the prospect of a world without federal processions is daunting.

Valerie Peterson said that learning about the leaked draft opinion was “triggering” because it reminded her of her own “agonizing” experience.

Peterson, a single mother with two daughters, said she traveled from Texas to Florida in 2015 after finding out her baby would likely not survive and facing restrictions obtaining an abortion.

“After the leak, one of the things that I really thought about were the other women that would be impacted by this decision,” Peterson told ABC News. “If Roe v. Wade is indeed overturned, this will be a traumatic experience for a lot of people across the United States.”

The Supreme Court’s 1973 decision on Roe v. Wade determined that a woman’s right to have an abortion is protected under the Constitution as part of a right to privacy. Without that federal protection, the decision will be in the hands of the states.

In the leaked draft opinion Justice Samuel Alito argues that there’s no explicit right to privacy, let alone the right to an abortion, in the Constitution.

“It held that the abortion right, which is not mentioned in the Constitution, is part of a right to privacy, which is also not mentioned,” Alito writes, calling the Roe decision “remarkably loose in its treatment of the constitutional text,” and arguing that stare decisis “does not compel unending adherence to Roe’s abuse of judicial authority.”

Chief Justice John Roberts released a rare, written statement to address the leak, saying, “Although the document described in yesterday’s reports is authentic, it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”

For Vikki Brown, who traveled from Louisiana to Washington, D.C., to get an abortion in 2019, learning the news was “jarring” experience because that evening she was scrambling to help a friend schedule an abortion in Louisiana — a state that only has three abortion clinics.

“I’ve been trying to help her figure out what her best option is. She hasn’t been able to get an appointment anywhere within the state of Louisiana that can see her this month,” Brown told ABC News, adding that the closest appointment they were able to find was five and a half hours away by car.

“[The news] really, for me, solidified how awful this is going to be for so many people,” Brown said.

And for Rebecca Turchanik, who said she traveled four hours from Nashville to Atlanta in 2019 to get an abortion, the news was “devastating.”

“I had been scrolling Twitter and saw it and I am honestly – I’m just devastated,” she said.

“I just had a very visceral reaction to it because I feel like there are so many impacts and waves that this impacts,” she added, “and people don’t really necessarily understand the effects of it.”

If Roe is overturned, abortions bans are certain to go into effect in more than a dozen states, including Texas, and are likely to go into effect in more than a dozen more, according to The Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research organization.

‘A logistical nightmare’

Turchanik said that repealing federal protections will exacerbate the challenges of accessing reproductive care, which is already “a logistical nightmare” in states like Tennessee, where about 96% of counties had no clinics that provided abortions in 2017, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

And in the U.S. overall, 89% of counties had no clinics that provide abortions in 2017, per the study. This disproportionately impacts low-income women and women of color, who do not have the financial means to travel or to cover medical costs – many of which are not covered by insurance.

Turchanik said she and her partner at the time in 2019 called multiple clinics in various states and finally found an appointment in Georgia, but they had to leave early in the morning and take time off work to be able to make it.

“I don’t feel like anyone should have to add that layer of complexity to an already complex thing,” she said. “Because I don’t think that an abortion is an easy thing.”

Turchanik added that if she was not able to get a ride to Atlanta, she may not have had enough funds to make the trip.

In 2019, Brown was living in Louisiana. Should Roe be overturned, patients seeking an abortion there would have to travel over 650 miles on average to Illinois, North Carolina or Kansas — the closest states where abortion would not be restricted, according to Guttmacher.

“I’m very lucky that I had the resources to go and leave Louisiana,” Brown said of her experience.

While abortion is legal in Louisiana, she would have had to contend with a long, multi-step process in New Orleans to get an abortion when she was about five weeks pregnant. Instead, Brown said she traveled to Washington, D.C., where she stayed with a friend and was able to get an abortion in one day.

“What will happen when Roe is overturned is that women will be forced to make decisions that put their health at risk and women who have less means will suffer the most,” she added.

Peterson expressed concern in particular for low-income women, as restrictions add up costs to obtain an abortion. This can include travel, taking time off from work, medical expenses not covered by insurance, lodging, childcare and more.

“Funding abortion is really difficult,” Peterson said.

When she traveled from Texas to Orlando, Florida, for her procedure, she said she had to pay for a flight, a hotel, a rental car and other expenses.

“A lot of women don’t have the opportunity or the capacity to come up with that amount of money, which was close to $5,000 for me,” she said.

‘Mental anguish’

For Peterson, there was also an emotional cost to restricting care. When she found out she was pregnant in 2015, she was surprised and excited as she “really thought I couldn’t have any more children.”

“I already knew that I was going to keep the baby,” she said.

She found out after visiting her doctor at six weeks that her pregnancy was classified as “high risk,” which could involve health risks for the mother and fetus and requires more frequent monitoring and ultrasounds.

Initially everything seemed fine, Peterson said, but at her 13-week ultrasound she found out that fetal anomalies have been detected. Two weeks later, she received what she described as a “devastating diagnosis.”

“I found out through ultrasound that my baby’s brain had not developed,” she said.

The fetus was diagnosed as having alobar holoprosencephaly, a rare disease that leads to structural anomalies early in the gestational development, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), as the brain fails to divide into right and left hemispheres. “The affected fetus is usually stillborn or dies soon after birth, or during the first 6 months of life,” according to the NIH.

After she was shown photos of the fetus’ brain and had the disease explained to her, she said she was given “two devastating options.”

“Option one, to continue to carry the baby. Eventually, I would miscarry, but we wouldn’t know when that would be. Or, I could terminate the pregnancy,” she said. “And based on the information that I had and the education that my doctor provided for me, I decided to terminate the pregnancy.”

Peterson was 16 weeks pregnant and in Texas, which then allowed abortions up to 20 weeks. She had to be referred by her doctor to an abortion provider and undergo mandatory counseling.

“Emotionally, I was not doing well. Mentally, I was not doing well, it’s very difficult to hear your baby — his brain is incompatible with life,” she said.

“Not only was there a three- to four-week waiting list, there was also a three- to four-day process to get the [appointment],” Peterson said, adding that the wait time caused her “mental anguish, as I was carrying the pregnancy, knowing now that there was no chance of survival.”

Peterson, who reflected on her experience in a book, “The Blue Lotus,” said learning of the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion was “heartbreaking” and took her back to the moment she learned her pregnancy would not be viable.

“To really think now that your body is being legislated by men who don’t know what it feels like to carry a pregnancy, to know that our bodies are being legislated with the lack of education and information on abortion is a problem,” she said.

After her abortion in 2015, Peterson became an advocate for abortion rights, testified before the Senate in 2019 and shared her story with women across the country.

She said after speaking at a rally outside the Supreme Court, several women told her they had abortions but told people they had a miscarriage because of the stigma abortion carries.

“That in itself is the reason why I use my name. I am a human being. I am a person,” she said.

“One of the things that I do want to say to people that may be in this situation, is that self care matters. You matter,” she added. “We all have to make sure that in our advocacy, that we are also taking care of ourselves, and working to change the laws that do not work for us.”

ABC News’ Keara Shannon, Karolina Rivas and Sabrina Peduto contributed to this report.

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