The Trump World’s Assault on U.S. Election Workers

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: Now, as we mentioned politicians aren’t the only ones under threat. Already in early voting, people are being intimidated in crucial swing states and the Justice Department warning of heightened threats against election workers too. Award-winning investigative journalist Linda So talks to Hari Sreenivasan about this deep danger to American democracy.

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HARI SREENIVASAN, CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Linda So, thanks so much for joining us. For more than a year now, working at Reuters you have been chronicling the types of threats and harassment that election workers have been going through. Just give our audience an idea of what are the things that people that are working in election offices around the United States are experiencing.

LINDA SO, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST, REUTERS: Sure, it became clear soon after the 2020 that Trump’s baseless and persistent voter flood — fraud claims were having a real-life consequence on America’s political system. Particularly, the election workers who were facing an unprecedented wave of threats and harassment. They and their families were receiving threat so severe that in some cases people had to leave their homes and go into hiding. We talked to election administrators across the country in more than a dozen battleground states. And collected many of the threats and harassing messages that they received. And have since compiled close to 1,000 intimidating messages, more than a hundred that could warrant prosecution.

SREENIVASAN: One of the stories that grabbed headlines was of two election workers, a mother and daughter, tell us about that?

SO: My colleague and I will never forget interviewing a mother and daughter in Georgia, both election workers. Their names are Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. They recently testified at the congressional committee investigating the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. And these women’s lives were literally upended because they were singled out by Trump and his campaign and demonized. Basically, they were accused of counting fraudulent ballots, pulling them from suitcases, and counting fake ballots to tip the election for Biden in Georgia. And as a result, they began receiving hundreds of death threats, racist taunts, threats of lynching. Shaye Moss, the daughter, she is a single mother. And she was earning just $36,000 a job, doing the work of elections. And she became a target of these threats. I remember her telling us that she loved her job. She looked forward to going in to work every day. Answering the phone call from people who might have questions about the process. She said how she would tuck her business card into each envelope of voter applications that she would send out. And she would write handwritten messages on this — on her business card, encouraging voters to call her if they had any questions. You know, as a black woman growing up in the south, it really meant something to her to help these people exercise their right to vote. But when these threats began, all that changed. She said she started having panic attacks whenever her phone would ring. She wouldn’t want to leave her cubicle at work. Her — strangers actually got a hold of her teenage cellphone’s — her teenage son’s cellphone and began calling him and threatening him. And she remembers one message he got that basically said, be glad it’s 2020 and 1920 because you would be hanging along with your mother. She suffered a mental breakdown and was terrified to leave her home. Her mother, Ruby Freeman, who also volunteered to count ballots in Georgia on election day, during the 2020 election, she too started getting hundreds of death threats. Some called for her execution. There was one message that said that she should be suicided with two bullets to the back of her head. Strangers showed up at our house and began harassing her, ultimately forcing her to leave her home and go into hiding for nearly two months.

SREENIVASAN: You’re talking about people, it seems, that are committed to this job. They’re not doing it for the money.

SO: They certainly aren’t doing it for the money. These people, when we talked to them, a common theme that comes out is they say they do this work because they love it. They find it — it’s their civic duty. And oftentimes when they’re running these elections, particularly as you get closer to an election, there is a lot of work that needs to be done. Sometimes they’re clocking 70, 80 hours. Working through weekends. Unable to go home and see their family. And they’re really sacrificing a lot of time and energy. And again, they aren’t getting paid a lot of money. But these people say that they do it because they love the work.

SREENIVASAN: You know, one of the facts that came off from your reporting, I just want to point out, is that, Reuters identified 44 counties in 15 states where local officials have faced efforts to change rules on voting since the 2020 election. 10 of Nevada’s 17 counties have seen their top election officials resign. And you also go in your reporting other states, in Pennsylvania, more than 50 county election directors or assistant directors have left since the 2020 vote. And, you know, you go across the country really, in South Carolina and so many other places. I wonder, you know, a lot of these threats, the FBI said that several of these — a large percent, or 60 percent or plus have been targeted around what we would consider battleground states. Is that what you found in your reporting?

SO: We did. When we first sought out to investigate these threats against election workers, we really focused on the battleground states. Because lot of times this — we found that election officials there were being targeted and accused of committing voter fraud simply because people didn’t like the outcome of the 2020 election. So, when we spoke to election officials in these battleground states, some of them were really receiving horrific threats. I recall speaking to the wife of Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, months after the election. She, as the wife, even though she wasn’t the elected official. She, as the wife, was receiving harrowing threats. You know, people would text her and tell her that they were praying that she and her family would die. Just horrific threats. And I remember her getting particularly emotional when she recounted an incident that involved her widowed daughter-in-law. After the election, after the 2020 election, someone had broken into her widowed daughter-in- law’s home and turned on all the lights, moved items around the home, opened all the doors, and they didn’t take anything. And the family, considered it an act of intimidation. So, after that happened, that same day, there were some Oath Keepers who were spotted outside the Raffensperger’s home. It forced the family ultimately to go into hiding.

SREENIVASAN: So, this is not just targeting people who might be of the opposite party. I mean, first of all, election workers are often not partisan and neither are the volunteers. But you’re talking about Brad Raffensperger who is a Republican, and he’s proud of it. So, the targets are just people who are in the positions of power, not necessarily if they, you know, voted for Joe Biden or not?

SO: Right. What we’re also seeing is that when some people believe that there was fraud and they don’t like the outcome of the election, then they will start accusing these officials no matter what their party affiliation, if they’re Republican or Democrat. If they simply were unhappy with the outcome of the election in that particular state, we have seen that they have been targets of threats.

SREENIVASAN: In the past week, we’ve also seen headlines come out of Arizona of poll watchers taking pictures of people casting their votes at drop boxes. We’ve also seen a video of men with long guns standing very close by. Tell me a little bit about what’s happening in Arizona?

SO: Right. Some of the clerks that we talked to, not only in Arizona, but other states where this happened during the primary. There main concern is that these voters will be intimidated. You know, we tracked and we learned of election denying groups that have been training an army of election observers who would go out during the midterms and the primaries that happened earlier this year to do various things that some voters and clerks consider intimidating. For instance, in Colorado, we spoke with an election clerk there who said that during a recount of votes, there was an aggressive group of protesters who actually turned out to the election building, and outside they were holding protests, chanting things like, stop the steal. And the voting machines are corrupt. Inside the building, as these election workers were recounting the votes, an aggressive group was pounding on the windows, they were recording the workers with their cellphone, and shouting angrily at them. And there was actually a group in the hallway that could be heard praying for evil to descend on the election team. Extra security was on hand to escort election workers who were fearing for their safety out to their cars. You know, the chief election clerk there told us he has been doing this work for a very long time but he has never seen anything like this before.

SREENIVASAN: In your reporting, a lot of these threats are made anonymously. And you took that additional step of trying to go through and unmask some of these folks. When you finally reached some of the people that were making these threats and doing sort of harassment, what did they have to say?

SO: Most of these people consider themselves patriots. And they felt like they were fighting a righteous fight to uphold elections in America because they felt that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. Many of them were heavy consumers of misinformation. And some of them told us that they were actually preparing for civil war. They didn’t like the direction that this country was taken — taking — is taking. And they feel that if something isn’t done now, that future elections will continue to be stolen. We spoke with one individual from Vermont who consumed a lot of misinformation. And he was so thoroughly convinced that 2020 was stolen. He felt it was his duty to call up the Vermont secretary of state’s office and leave a serious of threatening voicemails. Ultimately when we reached out to him and uncovered his identity, he began threatening us.

SREENIVASAN: And I wonder, since you began your reporting and publishing your work. I know that the Justice Department had set up an elections threat task force. What has come of it? And especially in the instances where you have documented the specific harassment that is prosecutable. Have those people been brought to justice?

SO: Our reporting did lead to the arrest of one man. And we do know that the Justice Department says that it takes all threats of violence seriously. So far, since the creation of that task force last summer, investigating threats against election workers, at least seven individuals have been charged. You know, when we speak with election officials across the country, they tell us they’re frustrated that more hasn’t been done. The Justice Department says that they are investigating. But oftentimes, these threats, these messages, don’t cross the line into criminality. They’re protected by free speech. So, in some cases, these threats can’t be prosecuted. The Justice Department also tells us that it takes time to build these cases.

SREENIVASAN: What are states or localities doing to try and combat this? I know I’ve heard of, like, a — you know, a text line or a call line from different states if people see a harassment or intimidation. But is there any kind of concerted effort?

SO: Yes, many election officials say the number one thing they stress is transparency. And so, they really try to open up the process to the public. They’ll hold public meetings where they invite the public to come in to watch as they demonstrate how these voting machines work. You know, they’ll also visit town halls. If they’re invited, they will go and speak to these groups and inform them on the voting process. There is one election director in Georgia that I spoke with, who actually said he doesn’t mind handing out his cellphone number for anyone who might have a question. He says that he answers their calls, speaks to them, really tries to talk them through the process. And in some cases, it helps. In other cases, he’s mentioned, you know, some people just call and they already have their mind made up. So, there’s really not much you can do.

SREENIVASAN: When you look back at your reporting, you see the number of people that you have spoken to who have left their jobs, probably earlier than they wanted to. What is at stake here? What are we losing when it comes to an election worker that might have been doing this for 15, 20 years?

SO: The concern is that there is a real loss of institutional knowledge. Decades of institutional knowledge that’s being lost when these veteran election officials leave their post. You know, running elections is a complicated task. And to do it efficiently and smoothly, you need experience and expertise. A lot of these election workers, as you said, have been doing it for a very long time. They learned the ins and outs of running an election. And with them leaving, there is a real concern that it’s leaving a void. And there’s only so much that you can do to train somebody in an hour-long session or a weekly session to really bring them up to speed on running this election smoothly.

SREENIVASAN: Are they being replaced? And is it part of, kind of, a national or a precinct strategy to, as you said, to replace some of these individuals, who people who still feel that Donald Trump was robbed of the results?

SO: There is a concern of that happening. And in fact, we see in several key battleground states, candidates who believe that the 2020 election was stolen are running for secretary of state. And again, these positions, you know, they are the top election in that state and they oversee how elections are run, how votes are cast and counted and certified. Some of these candidates had said that if they are elected, they’ll change the way their state votes. They will get rid of electronic voting machines because they feel that they’re corrupt, or they’ll strictly go to hand counting of ballots. So, again, there is that concern. And there’s also a concern that they can have significant power to decide whether to certify election results that are valid. And in fact, we saw that happen on a smaller scale in a rural county in Nevada. This is a pro-Trump county where the local commission, the local leaders, they refused to certify the June primary results over unfounded fears of voter fraud. And so, the secretary of state had to step in, and asked the state Supreme Court to have that county certify the votes, which they eventually did.

SREENIVASAN: But there are kind of strange bed fellows here in who is doing the harassing and the intimidation. I mean, we’ve certainly heard about people who are supporters of the former president doing this. Is there any kind of a far-left delegate, or are there Democrats involved in any of this intimidation?

SO: When we compiled these threats in more than a dozen battleground states, what we found was mostly all of them were coming from people who believed that the 2020 election was stolen. And again, they were consuming heavy amounts of misinformation. And so, when we would talk to these people on the phone, oftentimes, they were very passionate about their views. And when we would try to explain to them, give them the facts of what happened, many of them just refused to hear it. Again, because of the amounts of misinformation that they were consuming. And this is a challenge for election officials as well. They feel like they are combatting something that is so pervasive and prevalent among people who believe that the 2020 election was stolen. It’s really hard for them to fight against this.

SREENIVASAN: Linda So of Reuters, thanks so much for your time.

SO: Thanks for having me.