Election workers have received 140 threats between Jul. 11 and Aug. 22 in Arizona‘s most populous county, records show.
Threats included emails, social media posts, and video recordings of election workers, according to documents obtained by Reuters. “You will all be executed,” one of the messages said. “Wire around their limbs and tied & dragged by a car,” another one said.
Maricopa County’s elections director, Scott Jarrett, warned in an Aug. 4 email that people behind these threats pledged to continue their behavior through the midterm elections. “If our permanent and temporary staff do not feel safe, we will not be able [to] recruit and retain staff for upcoming elections,” Jarrett’s email read.
REPORTS OF VOTER INTIMIDATION ACROSS COUNTRY AS ELECTION DAY NEARS
Maricopa County, which has more than 4 million residents and includes Phoenix, was an epicenter of election fraud allegations in the 2020 cycle, which led to a controversial audit ordered by the state Senate.
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Officials referred 100 instances of threatening messages and online posts to the FBI, which created a task force to deal with the harassment of election workers in the summer of 2021. Since its creation, the task force has logged 1,000 threats to workers through social media, phone, email, and in person. Of these, 11% constituted a federal crime, according to the Associated Press. Four arrests have been made, per the FBI.
In North Carolina, officials registered 14 instances of “potential intimidation or interference with voters and election workers,” per Reuters. Voters dropping off ballots have been yelled at, photographed, and videotaped, while one election worker was followed to their car.
