saint harison. apologies to matt damon. we've run out of time for him. "nightline" is next. thank you for watching, goodnight. ♪ this is "nightline." >> byron: tonight, one year out. it's election day in america with poll workers on edge. >> we are preparing for the worst possible scenario. >> byron: the contentious

political climate ratcheting up the stakes. >> it's terrible to have a person next to you say, "you conserve to be executed." >> byron: will it be worse in 2024? megan fox. >> what is your problem? >> byron: the "transformers" star opening up about her relationship with machine gun kelly, the loss they experienced. >> like, he blames himself, i blame myself. >> byron: the hollywood hardships she says she's faced. >> i've had to go up against some of the most powerful men in the world. >> byron: why she says jennifer's body gave her the only thing she likes about being famous. and dolly parson. ♪ i say hey what's going on ♪ >> byron: the star tells us what's going on and how she went from country legend to rock star at 77. ♪ what's going on ♪ oh... stuffed up again? so congested!

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counted say they fear for their lives at an creditingly divisive political climate. part of our series "your voice, your vote" one year out. >> stop the steal! stop the steal! >> stop the count! >> byron: election workers under threat. >> in michigan, an open carry state, a judge ruling guns are allowed at polling places. >> byron: the keepers of our democracy facing harassment. >> election officials are warning right now of urgent security concerns. >> byron: some getting death threats. all for just doing their jobs. across the country, this largely mundane role has now become a sometimes dangerous one. some having to go to great lengths, like wearing bullet-proof vests, to keep themselves safe. >> i wear one pretty much every single day. >> byron: investing millions in plexiglass, security cameras, and other safety measures. >> people are very distrustful.

people are almost mean. we get a lot of accusations hurled at us. >> we are preparing for the worst possible scenario. >> byron: romilda is the county manager in luzerne county, pennsylvania. >> if we have an event at a polling location, we have a plan for them to be able to go to a different site and vote. we've worked with the district attorney, our sheriff's department, our county detectives, our emergency management, 911. we're all ready in case something happens. >> byron: what's happening in the swing county of over 300,000 people is also playing out across america. the high-alert environment could be a sign of things to come in 2024. >> elections were under siege in 2020, and i have high concern about 2024. >> byron: it can happen again? >> it could happen again. >> byron: in luzerne county, today is their test run. >> so it's just about 5:30 here in the morning, lieu zeern county, pennsylvania.

>> byron: and logan is already hitting the ground running. >> i recruited my two sisters. we're just about ready to leave the house, go over to a polling place, set up, and be ready for 7:00 when the voters come. >> byron: he's one of thunders of thousands of election workers across the country getting ready for an almost 20-hour day so that voters can cast their ballots today. >> as an officer of election -- >> that's a commitment that needs to be made, to keep election on this the right track and allow your neighbors to come in and vote. >> byron: luzerne is still reeling from the last presidential election. >> it has been a very chaotic several years. it's just been one crazy moment after the next. >> byron: emily cook is the county's deputy director of elections. at just 26 years old, she's among the most senior members of her department. >> we do have a frequently revolving door within the elections office. it's pretty reflective of what

election offices across the country are looking like post-2020. a lot of that is cue due to the climate that we're in now in relation to elections, which i can tell you firsthand is hostile. >> byron: last year during the midterm elections when cook was on the job for just two months, polling locations in the county were running low on paper ballots. the shortage corrected later that day. turned out to be an administrative oversight by a new team. but conspiracy theories spread like wildfire. >> i did start receiving death threats. sitting in a room with detectives and the sheriff and being told there are people that want you to die, there are people that are saying you should be drawn and quartered. >> byron: emily says the experience has left her forever changed. >> i'm a lot more hesitant to go really anywhere by myself. just because you don't know

who's out there. what keeps me up at night is not knowing if somebody's threatening me, then going through something, two members of my family, that is definitely one of the things that is part of my recurring nightmares. relating to this job. >> byron: according to a survey by the brennon center for justice, 3 in 4 election workers feel threats against them have gone up in recent years, and 30% say they have personally been abu abused, harassed, or threatened because of their job. what changed in america that that became fashionable to attack election workers? >> we have leaders falsely saying the system is rigged. they're promoting claims that are untrue about the way the system works. >> byron: when i hear you say leaders, i hear you say donald trump. is that who you're referring to? >> there's no question donald trump is part of this. and i do have concerns that

we're going into a season where he is on trial, so all of the stuff that we've heard about, about what happened in 2020, is going to be brought up again. he's not acting alone. and if he was the only one who was saying this, i don't think it would get the same traction that it's gotten. >> byron: the harassment so pervasive, the dep of justice launched a task force to look into the threats in 2021. so far, resulting in nine convictions. back in luzerne, ramilda says she won't allow anything to happen on her watch. >> no one is going to be able to abuse our election workers. they're our neighbors. they're the people who sit next to you in church. they're the ones who go to your little league games. i am not going to let anyone do anything to put them in harm's way. >> usa! >> byron: despite this heightened threat environment, experts say there is a silver lining. >> we're better prepared than we were in 2020. over the past few years, there's been an infrastructure that has

been built. there's something called the committee for safe and secure elections, which is a cooperation committee between law enforcement and election offic officials. >> a number of people across the country have lost faith in our election process. what can you say here, now, to reassure them that our process, while not perfect, is still functional? >> the thing that people aren't aware of this our system is how many checks therefore along the way. you have republicans and democrats. not only present when people are voting, but present in the counting, present when the ballots are being ordered, when we're checking over the ballots to make sure that it's designed correctly, checking signatures. all of that is done in a bipartisan way in this country. >> byron: while many election workers have left since 2020, some are still hopeful for our democracy. >> one of the things that's been very inspiring to me is people have come up and they've taken the place of these election officials who have left.

we've seen hundreds of new people joining to learn their jobs, to learn about being good election officials. they're committed to ensuring that their communities have free and fair elections. >> byron: like emily, many have risen to the challenge. >> i was born and raised here in luzerne county. this is where i first registered to vote. i've lived here my whole life. and so that's part of what keeps me here, wanting to help right the ship, making sure that things do get better. being part of the election process is what i always wanted to do. when we come back, actress megan fox's dark secrets revealed in a new book of poems. why she says she had to write the ps sis treatment she's been looking for. sotyktu is the first-of-its-kind, once-daily pill for moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis for the chance at clear or almost clear skin. it's like the feeling of finding your back... is back.

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♪ >> byron: welcome back. megan fox became a hollywood star at 21 when she landed the female lead in "transformers." she's been in dozens of movies since but says behind the scenes, her life was often grim. fox tells abc's kayna whitworth how she came through it. >> i wrote a lot of things that didn't make it in the book because i thought, this is maybe for god's eyes only. >> where did you find the strength to not only write about it, to put it on paper and put it out there for the world to see? >> i did really believe that if i didn't get this out of me, it was going to cause cancer or some kind of chronic illness. because it was just living inside of me. eating me alive. >> reporter: this is a side of megan fox few have seen. known for her scene-stealing

roles in the blockbuster "transformers" franchise -- >> it's so you can go faster. >> oh. i like to go faster. >> reporter: and the cult classic "jennifer's body" -- and in music videos like machine gun kelly's "bloody valentine." ♪ you'll be my bloody valentine ♪ >> reporter: the hollywood star now stepping into a new role as an author. you said your freedom lives in these pages. >> yeah. >> do you feel liberated now that it's out there? >> in many ways, yes. there's a lot of rather dark subject matter written about in the book. and so there's the freedom of having finally put it somewhere. >> reporter: this new book of poetry, a part diary, part metaphorical work of art detailing her tumultuous and sometimes volatile love life. >> true love, twin flame, trusted friend, naive girl, so

many secrets hiding behind your scorched-earth temper. i would say at different periods throughout my life, i was dealing with some really heavy experiences with different people. >> that involved physical, emotional, and mental violence, essentially? >> yes. >> there is one poem and the entire poem is, "i hate men" seven times. >> yeah. >> i want to say the book is written specifically from my victim mentality. my victim's self. that's not a holistic representation of who i am and what i believe. but it's a poetry book. i'm not trying to encourage anybody to hate men, but is this a book about how part of me hates men? for sure. >> it seemed so dark and so real when you talk about someone spitting on your face and smudging it and holding you down and hitting you. and then falling asleep onyou. so that you couldn't call

police. >> yeah, intentionally, yeah. those are all real experiences, yeah. that's probably the most graphic poem that i wrote. >> reporter: by sharing her harrowing past, fox says she's now reclaiming her voice. >> as i was reading? some of it was also a metaphor for how you were treated in hollywood? >> some of it is definitely a metaphor. none of it is what i would call fictional. those are all real-life experiences that i had. speaking about my career in hollywood and about how i've had to go up against some of the most powerful men in the world and the mirror that i've had to be for them and the way they've projected on to me. that definitely is not really a met metaphor, that is a poem addressing that specifically. >> reporter: despite blockbuster hits with some of entertainment's biggest names, she says it was her role in

"jennifer's body" -- >> i am a god. >> okay. >> reporter: that proved to be a poignant experience for her. >> so i have so many girls in particular coming up to me and saying, you helped me come out to my parents. you helped me realize i was gay or bisexual. you helped me understand my sexual identity. i am so grateful that i was a part of something that has affected people in that way. that that's the only thing that's, for me at least, rewarding about being a celebrity. the rest of it is kind of terrible. >> reporter: terrible, and she says sometimes painful. but one thing she's not revealing in her book, names of the accused. >> this is not an expose that i wrote or a memoir. i'm not trying to draw attention to who those people were or were not. but throughout my life, i have been in at least one physically abusive relationship and several psychologically very abusive relationships. >> when you decided that you

wanted to do this, who in your personal life was your biggest supporter? >> the person who actually told me i should write a poetry book is colson. >> reporter: colson baker, also known as machine gun kelly, the artist and fox romantically linked up nearly three years ago. she writes about their love story in the book and also the intimate moment of losing a pregnancy. >> we were not able to see a pregnancy through at one point in our relationship. and there was a tremendous amount of grief and emotional fallout that we went through together. i obviously went through a space where everybody blames themselves. he blames himself, i blame myself. and why did this happen? and if she could have said good-bye to us, if she could have told us why she was leaving, do you think she would have? >> reporter: fox now transforming the trauma she says she faced onto pen and paper.

her message to women, you don't have to stay silent. >> it gives like an elegant place for your pain to live. to put it into art makes it useful to other people. so you don't just suffer with it on your own. >> byron: our thanks to kayna. from topping the country chart with songs like "jolene," dolly now a country star at 77, what she hopes her last words will be. ♪ jolene jolene jolene jolene please don't take him just because you can ♪ to help protect from hiv. i prep without pills. with apretude, a prescription medicine used to reduce the risk of hiv without daily prep pills. with one shot every other month, just 6 times a year. in studies, apretude was proven superior to a daily prep pill in reducing the risk of hiv.

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♪ >> byron: finally tonight, dolly parton is the subject of a new spec special, "from rhinestones to rock 'n' roll." the country legend turned rock star sat down with robin roberts to talk about her new album. ♪ >> hi! >> bless your heart. every time i sit down with you, you have something new going on. >> well, everything's new with me, every day's new. i wake up with new dreams every day and i dreamed myself into a corner, so i have to keep the dreams alive. one of the newest things right now is my rock 'n' roll album called "rockstar." i'm excited about that. >> you are releasing a rock album, dolly.

>> here i am at 77 years old, i'm going to be a rock star. >> reporter: dolly's rock star era started last year when she was inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame, an honor she didn't believe she deserved. rock and roll hall of fame. they reach out to you, you're like, thank you but no thank you. you even said that you're not worthy. dolly parton not worthy? >> you know me and controversy. i don't want no part of nothing. i'm not a rebel without a cause. you know? i know a lot of the rock artists that have never been put in the hall of fame and that really should be. like i've spent my life in country music, and i'm happy to accept anything bought i work hard in that world. did not want to take any votes away from any of the rock people that spent their life doing that. then they kept saying, "no, we want you." >> reporter: dolly deciding to accept the honor, performing a

new song about her longtime love of rock 'n' roll at the ceremony. ♪ ♪ i grew up loving elvis and wild man jerry lee ♪ ♪ chuck berry and little richard they all cast a spell on me ♪ >> reporter: a final question. how would you complete this sentence? dolly is? >> dolly is dolly. i've said that i'm the workhorse that looks like a showhorse. i make a joke and say that i hope to die on stage in the middle of a song, hopefully one i've written. >> reporter: dolly, i will always love you, thank you. >> well, thank you. >> byron: dolly parton, ladies and gentlemen. our thanks to robin. "dolly parton: from rhinestones to rock 'n' roll" is now streaming on hulu. also, catch dolly live on the cmas tomorrow beginning