Trump-inspired death threats terrorize election workers
Election officials and their families are living with threats of hanging, firing squads, torture and bomb blasts, interviews and documents reveal. The campaign of fear, sparked by Trump's voter-fraud falsehoods, threatens the U.S. electoral system.
By LINDA SO in ATLANTA
Filed June 11, 2021, 11 a.m. GMT
Trump-inspired death threats are terrorizing election workers
Late on the night of April 24, the wife of Georgia’s top election official got a chilling text message: “You and your family will be killed very slowly.”
A week earlier, Tricia Raffensperger, wife of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, had received another anonymous text: “We plan for the death of you and your family every day.”
That followed an April 5 text warning. A family member, the texter told her, was “going to have a very unfortunate incident.”
Those messages, which have not been previously reported, illustrate the continuing barrage of threats and intimidation against election officials and their families months after former U.S. President Donald Trump’s November election defeat. While reports of threats against Georgia officials emerged in the heated weeks after the voting, Reuters interviews with more than a dozen election workers and top officials – and a review of disturbing texts, voicemails and emails that they and their families received – reveal the previously hidden breadth and severity of the menacing tactics.
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“It was unbelievable: your life being threatened just because you’re doing your job.”
Ralph Jones, election registration chief, Fulton County
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“It seemed like we were descending into this third-world mentality. I never expected that out of this country.”
Richard Barron, Fulton County elections director
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In a 2017 report, the federal U.S. Election Assistance Commission found that 65% of jurisdictions across the country reported that it was “very difficult” or “somewhat difficult” in the 2016 election to recruit enough poll workers. The pandemic exacerbated that problem last year. To address it, some states such as Maryland opened fewer polling places.
State governments play other roles, setting election-related rules, such as mail-in ballot requirements, and making sure they’re followed. State election officials run voter registration databases, test and certify voting equipment, and sometimes buy voting machines used across their state.
Twenty-four states – from Georgia to California – have an elected secretary of state as the chief election official, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). In some states, the elected lieutenant governor is the chief election official. In others, the chief election official is appointed by the legislature or governor. In all but Delaware, the chief election official is called the secretary of state, according to the NCSL. (In Delaware, the position is Commissioner of Elections.)
The federal government’s role has traditionally been minor but was expanded after the disputed 2000 presidential election to include setting standards for how elections are run. That includes, for instance, setting rules on the use of provisional ballots for people whose eligibility is questioned and advising states how to maintain voter registration databases. Other functions include providing money for voting equipment, helping states recruit poll workers and monitoring foreign interference.
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