Threats against election workers spiked after 2020, fueling concerns about recruiting, retaining key workers

WASHINGTON – A Texas man threatened an Arizona county election official and the person’s children, warning of “brain matter splattered across the sidewalk” and a “mass shooting of poll workers."

A New Hampshire woman threatened a Michigan county election official and her 12-year-old daughter that they would be treated like terrorists, accompanied by two pictures of a nude, mutilated, dead woman.

And a Florida man threatened election workers by asking at a polling place: “should I kill them one by one or should I blow the place up?”

Threats against election workers spiked after the 2020 election and these were among them cases the Justice Department prosecuted. Even as election results have become the most secure in history, state and local election officials are concerned that threats will hurt recruitment and retention of election workers who are key to collecting and counting votes.

“I can tell you that they are experiencing as much abuse and harassment fueled by lies as ever, and sometimes those are threats,” said David Becker, a former Justice Department lawyer who is now executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonprofit that works with election officials to build confidence in voting.

Threats against election workers exploded after the 2020 election, as then-President Donald Trump and his supporters falsely claimed widespread fraud. The claims ? and threats ? continue despite investigations by his fellow Republicans that found no problems significant enough to change the outcome. But election experts expect the harassment to roil the political landscape this year with Trump the likely nominee for a rematch against President Joe Biden.

1 in 6 election workers threatened in recent years: survey

Three out of four election officials say threats have increased in recent years and one in six has been threatened, according to a Brennan Center for Justice survey in March 2022. More than half the election officials said they are concerned the threats will make it difficult to retain and recruit election workers, the survey found.

Threats arrive by text, email or phone call. The targets are election officials of both parties whose personal information has been posted on the internet. Or just election offices. The defendants that have been charged were often agitated about vote counting in swing states such as Arizona or Georgia or Michigan, where Biden won but where Trump falsely claimed the election was rigged or stolen.

More than one in five election officials will be serving in their first presidential election this year, according to a Brennan Center survey of election officials in March 2023. Turnover has been significant. An average of two election officials per day left their jobs since the 2020 election, the survey found.

“We have seen a rise in the past few years in threats against election officials,” said Andrew Garber, a lawyer on the Brennan Center’s voting rights and election team. “They don’t feel secure in their work.”

Becker said the volume of threats has remained high since the founding of a legal defense network in 2021 to provide election officials with advice and assistance responding to the harassment.

“Election officials all over the country feel as weary and exhausted as they did on Inauguration Day three years ago,” he said.

Attorney General Merrick Garland calls 'spike' in violent threats 'unacceptable'

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the creation of the Justice Department Election Threats Task Force in June 2021 to ensure election workers – whether elected, appointed or volunteer – could do their jobs without threats and intimidation.

“At the same time that we are seeing an encouraging downward trend in violent crime, we are also witnessing a deeply disturbing spike in threats against those who serve the public,” including election workers, Garland said a conference to combat violent crime earlier this month. “These threats of violence are unacceptable. They threaten the fabric of our democracy.”

So far, the task force has reviewed more than 2,000 incidents of hostility, harassment, abuse or threats to the election community, which includes elected officials, election staffers and volunteers, according to Joshua Stueve, a Justice Department spokesperson. But more than 90% of the incidents didn’t qualify for a federal criminal investigation for lack of a threat of unlawful violence because comments are often protected under the First Amendment.

The Justice Department gauges whether an abusive message constitutes a “true threat” before opening a criminal investigation. The definition of a true threat, according to a landmark Supreme Court case about cross burning, is a “serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence.”

The department has charged 15 defendants with threatening election workers and won 11 convictions, with the longest prison term being three-and-a-half years. Dozens of threats remain under investigation.

Federal prosecutors focus on threats that crossed state lines. The task force has held about 100 meetings to train state and local authorities how to investigate the cases.

Federal officials have also been meeting with state and local officials in groups such as the National Association of Election Officials to aid local prosecutions. Local cases include a defendant charged with threatening officials in Atlantic County, New Jersey in 2023; a defendant charged with threatening the Colorado secretary of state in July 2022 and a defendant sentenced for threatening Arizona election officials in early 2022.

“I think it’s fair to say that election officials are not feeling the deterrent effect yet,” Becker said of the program.

In perhaps the highest-profile case, Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss were flooded with racist death threats after Freeman and Moss were falsely accused of unloading carting in a "suitcase" of illegitimate votes in what Republican investigators confirmed was a routine storage container.

Freeman went into hiding and had to sell her house. Moss' son worried about coming home to find her lynched.

Freeman and Moss won a $148 million defamation suit against Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's lead campaign lawyer, who spread lies about the ballot container and USB sticks. Giuliani has vowed to appeal and is fighting the judgment in bankruptcy court.

Georgia official central to 2020 recount 'swatted'

Gabe Sterling, chief operating officer for Georgia’s secretary of state, posted on X on Jan. 3 that his family had been "swatted" with somebody making a false report to police that a drug deal resulted in a shooting at his home.

Swatting has become a widespread form of harassment. Shenna Bellows, the Maine secretary of state who barred Trump from the state ballot, reported on Facebook on Dec. 23 that her home had been swatted the day before with a false report about an emergency.

"This behavior is unacceptable," Bellows said. "The non-stop threatening communications the people who work for me endured all day yesterday is unacceptable. It’s designed to scare not only me but also others into silence, to send a message."

States adopt laws to protect election workers

To combat rising and pervasive threats against election workers, a variety of states adopted or broadened penalties for threatens or harassment. In the last year:

• Nevada adopted penalties up to four years in prison for harassing, intimidating election workers performing their duties.

• Michigan established penalties for harassing or intimidating election officials in a way that prevents them from doing their jobs. The maximum penalty for a first offense is 93 days in jail and a $500 fine, and a third offense makes the crime a felony.

• Minnesota created civil penalties and a $1,000 fine for threatening, intimidating or harassing election workers. While state law previously protected election workers from assault, the law makes it illegal to interfere with an election, distribute information about an official or physically obstruct election officials.

In 2022, Colorado and Oregon prohibited threats against election workers or the release of their personal information, Maine outlawed interfering with an election worker’s official duties through threats and violence, and Georgia made it illegal to prevent poll officers from performing their duties.

Paul Smith, senior vice president the Campaign Legal Center, an advocacy group that worked on the legislation with state lawmakers, called local and state election officials “the backbone of the whole system.” But he said they are under stress because so many are new, after departures because of threats.

“It’s a tough time and some of them have said, ‘I don’t need this,’” Smith said. “Pro-democracy forces are going to be on high alert and are going to be as ready as we can be.”

Threats spur lawyer and family to get 24-hour protection, wear body armor

In the Texas case, Frederick Goltz, then-52 years old, of Lubbock, posted threatening messages on the social networking site Patriots.win, an online community of Trump supporters, and on Gab.com, a network for far-right users, according to court records.

In response to a Patriots.win post complaining Nov. 21, 2022, about ballots that were "canceled" because of election machine malfunctions, Goltz posted the name, address and phone number of an election worker in Maricopa County, Arizona, and said: “Someone needs to get these people AND their children,” according to court records. Goltz had posted threatening statements against government officials on Gab.com on Dec. 1, 2022, according to court records. "Yeah, but when it's me, I'm willing to take lives," Goltz said. "This means their children are not off limits, either."

The victim, a deputy county attorney who worked on elections, testified at Goltz’s sentencing in August that he, his wife and four children were assigned round-the-clock protection and issued body armor because of the threat, according to court records.

Goltz pleaded guilty to interstate threatening communications and was sentenced to 42 months in prison. But Goltz has appealed the sentence to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by arguing "his advocacy of illegal acts and political hyperbole was not a true threat."

In another Arizona case, Mark Rissi, then-64, of Hiawatha, Hawaii, left a threatening voicemail on Sept. 27, 2021, for an official with the Maricopa County board of supervisors, according to court records. "You're gonna die, you piece of" expletive, Rissi said. "We're going to hang you." Rissi also called Mark Brnovich, the state's Republican attorney general, on Dec. 8, 2021, and left a voicemail claiming he was the "victim of a crime" because of the "theft of the 2020 election," according to court records. "Do you job, Brnovich, or you will hang with those (expletive) in the end," Rissi said. "We will see to it. Torches and pitchforks."

Rissi was sentenced to two and half years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of sending threatening communications.

In the Michigan case, Katelyn Jones, 26, of Epping, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty to two counts of making interstate threats in November 2020 against Monica Palmer, the Republican former chairperson of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, according to court records.

Palmer led a raucous meeting Nov. 17, 2020, and voted to certify the election results after initially voting against certification. Trump and his supporters fought in a half-dozen swing states to postpone the certification of election results so they could mount legal challenges and potentially have Congress reject presidential electors for Biden in contested states.

Jones admitted texting Palmer messages the morning after the meeting calling her a “disgusting racist bitch,” followed by pictures of the dead woman and messages such as “you should be afraid, your daughter should be afraid and so should” her husband, according to court records. Palmer received similar threats on Instagram.

When FBI agents interviewed Jones after searching her house in December 2020, she admitted sending the texts and making the Instagram post because she was angry about Palmer's vote to certify the election. Jones was sentenced on Jan. 16 to 30 days in federal jail.

In the Florida case, Joshua Lubitz, then-38, was charged after making threats at a polling station in the Sunrise Senior Center in August 2022. While inside, Lubitz was heard counting election workers and asking whether he should kill them one at a time or blow them up. After voting and leaving, he drove past the location and made a threatening gesture toward poll workers.

Lubitz suffered mental health problems that prevented him from finishing college and he was twice hospitalized for severe anxiety, according to court records. He pleaded guilty to voter intimidation and was sentenced to three years of supervised probation.

Election experts worry that further claims to undermine the results this year could lead to more threats and potentially violence.

"Our elections now are as secure as they’ve ever been," Becker said. “My concern is more that that might not matter to the losing candidate and his supporters, and that will lead to further abuse, harassment and threats, and potentially broader political violence."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Death, bomb threats against election workers shadow 2024 campaign