LA County voters go to the polls to vote in-person the day before Election Day on the LA County Registrar-Recorder on June 6, 2022 in Norwalk, California.
Gina Ferazzi | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images
A 64-year-old Iowa man was arrested earlier this month for threatening to kill election officials in Arizona’s Maricopa County — a pivotal county at the middle of the 2020 election and subsequent state recount where former President Donald Trump lost by about 10,000 votes.
“After we come to lynch your silly lying Commie [expletive], you may do not forget that you lied on the [expletive] Bible, you piece of [expletive]. You are gonna die, you piece of [expletive]. We’ll hang you. We’ll hang you,” the person allegedly said in a voicemail left for Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich on Sept. 27, 2021, in response to the Justice Department.
That is only one example of the rising variety of violent threats election staff in the times leading as much as the Nov. 8 midterms. The Department of Justice and other law enforcement agencies are cracking down on the escalation of the threats ahead of the U.S. election that would flip the balance of power in Congress.
“Threats to election staff not only threaten the security of the individuals concerned, but additionally jeopardize the steadiness of the U.S. electoral process,” the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a public service announcement earlier this month. Homeland Security warned in June that “calls for violence by domestic violent extremists” against election staff, candidates and democratic institutions will likely rise the closer we get to the midterms.
An observer watches as contractors working for Cyber Ninjas, who was hired by the Arizona State Senate, examine and recount ballots from the 2020 general election at Veterans Memorial Coliseum on May 8, 2021 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Courtney Pedroza | The Washington Post | Getty Images
DOJ has fielded an increasing variety of reports of threatening voicemails, online messages and even in-person encounters since Trump lost the 2020 election.
“These threats against election officials proceed,” Michael McDonald, a professor of political science on the University of Florida, told CNBC. “It’s straining and stressing election officials. And in some cases, they’re opting to retire from running elections.”
Unprecedented intimidation
Earlier this month, DOJ Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr., who runs the agency’s criminal division, briefed tons of of election officials and staff on federal government grants available under the 2002 Help American Vote Act to bolster physical security at election locations. The act authorized an extra $75 million for security for this 12 months — up from $425 million in 2020. Additional funding from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan can be used to guard election staff, Polite said.
The precautions stem from the unprecedented intimidation of election officials and staff through the 2020 presidential vote — an election that Trump continues to falsely claim was rigged — despite the fact that quite a few courts, law enforcement and high-ranking
Republican officials have found no evidence of widespread fraud.
Employees in battleground states in 2020, notably Georgia and Arizona, have been repeatedly targeted by extremists since those states’ races were contested and lost by Trump.
Gabriel Sterling, Georgia Secretary of State’s chief operating officer, told U.S. lawmakers in June that one among the state’s election staff was threatened to be “hung for treason” after transferring an election report back to a county computer.
Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, former Elections Department worker in Fulton County, Georgia testifies through the fourth of eight planned public hearings of the U.S. House Select Committee to analyze the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. June 21, 2022.Â
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
Former Georgia election employee Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss testified at the identical hearing about racist threats and death wishes she received after becoming the main target of a Trump conspiracy theory.
‘Turned my life the other way up’
Moss, who was falsely accused of election tampering, said the harassment stemming from those accusations “turned my life the other way up.”
“It’s affected my life in a significant way. In every way. All due to lies. From me doing my job, the identical thing I have been doing eternally,” Moss told the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
DOJ launched an election threats task force in July 2021 to make sure voters are secure on the polls and to look into the rise in threatening behavior against election staff like Moss. Over the past 12 months, it has held roughly 40 meetings, presentations, and trainings with the election community, state and native prosecutors, state and native law enforcement, vendors providing services to support election administration, and major social media corporations, a DOJ official told CNBC.
Gwinnett County election staff handle ballots as a part of the recount for the 2020 presidential election on the Beauty P. Baldwin Voter Registrations and Elections Constructing on November 16, 2020 in Lawrenceville, Georgia.
Megan Varner | Getty Images
The duty force reviewed over 1,000 contacts reported by elections officials as hostile or harassing, the agency said in August. In cases where they may discover the offender, half of them contacted officials on a couple of occasion and about 11% of the incidents merited federal criminal investigation, in response to the duty force.
Close elections
“Election officials in states with close elections and post-election contests were more more likely to receive threats,” DOJ said. Greater than half 58%, of the doubtless criminal threats were in states that underwent 2020 post-election lawsuits, recounts, and audits, including Arizona, Georgia, Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin.
A March report by the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan policy institute, showed nearly one in three local election officials know not less than one employee who has left their job due partially to safety concerns, elevated threats or intimidation. One in six local officials has personally experienced threats and greater than half of this number have been threatened in person, in response to the report.
“Who’s going to run the election, if sensible people aren’t willing to do it because they’re under threat?” McDonald said.
Legal analyst and electoral poll watcher Richard Bell says federal and state government officials are stepping up their response to make sure election integrity and to make election staff feel safer.
“It’s going to be secure for voters to vote, and it is going to be secure for election officials to perform their work,” Bell said. “This isn’t 2020 when some people got taken by surprise. We’re thoroughly aware of the probabilities.”
Georgia launched a statewide text alert system this month to report incidents of violence against poll staff. The office of Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, a Republican who defied former Trump by certifying that state’s 2020 election results favoring Joe Biden, created the tool after the last presidential election. Raffensperger said he and his family have been targeted with quite a few threats since Trump lost.
A transcript of a phone call between former U.S. President Donald Trump and Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State, appears on a video screen through the fourth hearing on the January sixth investigation within the Cannon House Office Constructing on June 21, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
The FBI sent out a memo this month warning the general public against threatening election staff in Arizona, where staff have received death threats.
In June, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed an act protecting election staff from threats, coercion or intimidation into law.
Fair and free elections
The Office of U.S. Attorneys, which prosecutes federal crimes in local regions across the country for DOJ, can also be assigning local prosecutors to assist oversee election safety in every state as a part of the Justice Department’s routine Election Day Program.
“Every citizen must find a way to vote without interference or discrimination and to have that vote counted in a good and free election,” U.S. Attorney Dena J. King said in a statement. “Similarly, election officials and staff must find a way to serve without being subject to illegal threats of violence. The Department of Justice will all the time work tirelessly to guard the integrity of the election process.”
The identical day the Iowa man was arrested for threatening Arizona officials earlier this month, DOJ said a person in Nebraska was sentenced to 18 months in prison for threatening an election official and posting threatening messages on Instagram to Biden and one other public figure.
“Do you’re feeling secure? You should not. Do you think that Soros will/can protect you?” prosecutors said the person told the election official, referencing billionaire Democratic donor George Soros. “Your security detail is way too thin and incompetent to guard you. This world is unpredictable as of late … anything can occur to anyone.”
