Charges against Georgia poll workers
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) –
Tonya Wichman has been running elections in a rural Ohio county for eight years and has had no significant problems casting a vote or counting the ballots. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to worry at all.
What worries her is the frequent harassment, intimidation and even physical threats she and her staff have faced since the 2020 election. Things got so bad ahead of the 2022 midterm elections that their staff were given police protection when exiting or entering the office.
That’s why she paid close attention this week
the indictment of former President Donald Trump and 18 others accused of conspiring to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. The indictment names several people, among many counts, in a campaign of harassment that led to death threats against two Atlanta poll workers
They target state or local election officials, many of whom have quit their jobs after facing political pressure or threats from those who mistakenly believe the 2020 presidential election was rigged. “It’s nice to know that people are listening,” said Wichman, a Republican who listens to the election commissioner in Defiance County, where Trump won over 67% of the vote in 2020.
“We understand the First Amendment and the right to free speech, but harassing poll workers and poll officials, intimidating their families only wears people down and causes good people to quit their jobs,” she said. “It was worrying all over the country.”
Intimidation of poll workers is a key element
Conspiracy Alleged in Georgia Case. Tuesday’s indictment alleges that several of the defendants falsely accused Fulton County poll worker Ruby Freeman of committing election crimes and that some defendants traveled from out of state to harass and intimidate the Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, and other state elections officials on Jan. 2, 2021 — including the fact that up to 300,000 ballots “mysteriously ended up on the electoral roll,” that more than 4,500 people voted who were not on the registry, and that Freeman did this as a “professional election fraudster”.
Rudy Giuliani, then a close Trump adviser
Also facing charges in the Georgia case, he is accused of making multiple false claims about the vote counting process at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena. Prosecutors say he falsely claimed that county officials stationed there kicked out observers and then “went about their dirty, crooked business,” illegally counting up to 24,000 ballots. He also said three poll workers — Freeman, her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, and an unidentified man — passed around USB ports “like they were vials of heroin or cocaine” to infiltrate Dominion voting machines. Three other defendants in Georgia In the Harrison William Prescott Floyd, Trevian C. Kutti and Stephen Cliffgard Lee case, they were charged with inciting false testimony and writings and influencing witnesses in connection with the harassment of Freeman, who was falsely accused by Trump and others of the was accused of fraud.
It was not immediately clear who represented any of the three.
Ned Foley, director of suffrage at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, said Georgia’s charges were additional to the allegations
The federal election case against Trump and a defamation lawsuit against Fox News are beginning to send a message. “There was a feeling that there was a fight against everyone, that people could attack the election with impunity and attack certain individuals with impunity. ” He said. “You have to believe that all of these charges — no matter how they end up in court and whether or not there is a conviction — have changed the legal landscape and will cause people to think twice about this type of behavior ponder.”
Several other cases concern
Threats against poll workers have caused a stir in recent weeks. Earlier this month, a Texas man who threatened election officials in Arizona and called for a mass shooting of poll workers was sentenced to three and a half years in federal prison. Last week, the US Department of Justice filed indictments against a 37-year-old Indiana man accused of threatening a Michigan election official. The target of that call was Tina Barton, a Republican and elections commissioner in the Detroit suburb of Rochester Hills.
She said she was relieved when charges were finally being brought in her case – three years after receiving a voicemail with a profanity-riddled message threatening to kill her and accusing her of fraud in the 2020 election: “You know what, you will pay for it. You’re going to pay for it,” the caller said, according to court documents.
In the years since, Barton said she has feared for her own safety and that of her family.
“The political atmosphere is so tense on both sides right now that it’s difficult to talk about anything along those lines. Including something that poses an actual threat to someone’s life,” she said. “It becomes isolating.”
The call that led to the indictment was just one of many she received in the weeks following the 2020 presidential election, but the others were not considered a “genuine threat” by the high bar of federal law. Only intent to cause direct harm is considered a criminal offense – something designed to protect freedom of expression but can offer little comfort to those who are victims of harassment.
An election to the Department of Justice
The Threats Task Force, formed in June 2021, has reviewed more than 2,000 harassing or threatening communications to campaign workers. Federal prosecutors have filed federal criminal charges in more than a dozen of these cases, including the Texas man’s case. In Georgia, the indictment alleges that Floyd solicited Kutti, who flew from Chicago to Atlanta on Jan. 4, 2021, into contact with Freeman. Lee, the indictment says, communicated with Floyd by phone. The indictment states that Kutti, Floyd and Lee all broke the law by “knowingly and unlawfully engaging in misleading conduct towards Ruby Freeman … by alleging that she needed protection and by pretending to seek her assistance.” offer with intent to influence her testimony before an officer.” Proceedings in Fulton County, Georgia.”
Freeman and her daughter
testified before Congress last year that Trump and his allies used November 2020 surveillance footage to accuse both women of voter fraud — allegations that were quickly debunked but spread widely in the conservative media. Both women received death threats for several months after the election. Colorado Secretary of State
Jena Griswold has attempted to counter threats through legislation. Last year, she worked with state legislators on a bill that would designate poll workers as a protected class from doxing — the posting of an individual’s personal information online. This makes the practice a misdemeanor and allows poll workers to remove their personal information from online records. It also makes threatening an election official a crime under state law.
Colorado is one of 12 states that must pass
Laws protect poll workers, either by protecting their personal information, increasing penalties for harassment, or both, according to data from the nonprofit Voting Rights Lab. “There are many states that don’t take threats seriously enough against poll workers, most of whom are women,” Griswold said, noting that even during a campaign lull, she continues to face a steady stream of threats be. “That was undoubtedly the most difficult part of my job.”
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Associated Press writers Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta and Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington, DC contributed to this report.
Charges against Georgia poll workers
Charges against Georgia poll workers
Charges against Georgia poll workers
