(Radio Iowa) – Election Day is supposed to be about exercising the right to vote, but fears of violence are prompting many communities coast-to-coast to take significant security precautions, including fortifying parts of the nation’s capital. U-S Senator Chuck Grassley, who’s in Iowa today (Tuesday), says he’s seeing on T-V how there’s heavy armed security behind barricades, and 8-foot-high metal fences around multiple Washington D-C buildings, including the White House, prepping for civil unrest.

“I hope it doesn’t happen and never happens again in the future,” Grassley says. “I think that it’s a precaution that is only being taken because we’re in a different environment today, and hopefully this protection that’s being taken isn’t needed.” Governors in Oregon, Nevada and Washington state have activated the National Guard to have troops on standby through Thursday after the fire-bombing of ballot boxes in recent weeks.  “I assume that when businesses are boarding up, they think there can be potential violence, like there was in Minneapolis at the George Floyd murder, things like that,” Grassley says, “but let’s just hope that doesn’t happen, but it could happen.”

In many areas, Grassley says there have been threats of violence against poll workers. “That’s a recent occurrence in our election process, and I hope it doesn’t happen today, and I hope it never happens in future elections,” he says, “because these workers at the polling places, their hard work facilitates a smooth election day for everyone exercising their right to vote.”

A-B-C reports the F-B-I has logged more than two-thousand threats to election workers since April with more than 20 people charged.