Georgia
AJC: Georgia officials brace for threats ahead of presidential election
David Wickert of the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports on threats against election officials in Georgia.
U.S. elections depend on hundreds of thousands of poll workers, many of them temporary employees drawn from the ranks of retirees and others who can work long hours for days or weeks leading up to and following election day.
It doesn’t pay much — Gwinnett County, for example, pays $160 and up for election day clerks. But many take pride in what they consider a patriotic service.
“It’s a very important job. It’s very important to democracy,” Ramachandran said. “But it’s not, historically, been a very glamorous job.”
As distrust of elections has spread, many workers now worry it’s a dangerous job. A series of high-profile incidents has not reassured them:
•In 2020, two Fulton County election workers received hundreds of threatening messages after Trump and his allies falsely accused them of voting fraud. The workers later won a $148 million defamation verdict against former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who played a key role in spreading the lies. But the workers’ lives were upended — one fled her home, while the other quit her job at the county election office.
•Last year federal officials found a letter laced with deadly fentanyl and addressed to the Fulton County election office. Similar letters were sent to election officials in other states.
•In 2022, the FBI arrested Chad Christopher Stark, a Texas man, on allegations he threatened to shoot and kill Georgia election officials. Stark posted threats to several officials by name the day of the January 2021 runoff.