XPost: talk.politics.guns, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.usa.republican   
   XPost: alt.politics.trump   
   From: jdyoung2@ymail.com   
      
   By Linda So, Peter Eisler and Jason Szep   
      
   (Reuters) - Election workers in Arizona’s most fiercely contested county   
   faced more than 100 violent threats and intimidating communications in the   
   run-up to Tuesday’s midterms, most of them based on election conspiracy   
   theories promoted by former President Donald Trump and his allies.   
      
   The harassment in Maricopa County included menacing emails and social   
   media posts, threats to circulate personal information online and   
   photographing employees arriving at work, according to nearly 1,600 pages   
   of documents obtained by Reuters through a public records request for   
   security records and correspondence related to threats and harassments   
   against election workers.   
      
   Between July 11 and Aug. 22, the county election office documented at   
   least 140 threats and other hostile communications, the records show. “You   
   will all be executed,” said one. “Wire around their limbs and tied &   
   dragged by a car,” wrote another.   
      
   The documents reveal the consequences of election conspiracy theories as   
   voters nominated candidates in August to compete in the midterms. Many of   
   the threats in Maricopa County, which helped propel President Joe Biden to   
   victory over Trump in 2020, cited debunked claims around fake ballots,   
   rigged voting machines and corrupt election officials.   
      
   Other jurisdictions nationwide have seen threats and harassment this year   
   by the former president’s supporters and prominent Republican figures who   
   question the legitimacy of the 2020 election, according to interviews with   
   Republican and Democratic election officials in 10 states.   
      
   The threats come at a time of growing concern over the risk of political   
   violence, highlighted by the Oct. 28 attack on Democratic House Speaker   
   Nancy Pelosi's husband by a man who embraced right-wing conspiracy   
   theories.   
      
   In Maricopa, a county of 4.5 million people that includes Phoenix, the   
   harassment unnerved some election workers, according to previously   
   unreported incidents documented in the emails and interviews with county   
   officials.   
      
   A number of temporary workers quit after being accosted outside the main   
   ballot-counting center following the Aug. 2 primary, Stephen Richer, the   
   county recorder who helps oversee Maricopa’s elections, said in an   
   interview. One temporary employee broke down in tears after a stranger   
   photographed her, according to an email from Richer to county officials.   
   The unidentified worker left work early and never returned.   
      
   She wasn’t a political person, she told Richer. She just wanted a job.   
      
   On Aug. 3, strangers in tactical gear calling themselves “First Amendment   
   Auditors” circled the elections department building, pointing cameras at   
   employees and their vehicle license plates. The people vowed to continue   
   the surveillance through the midterms, according to an Aug. 4 email from   
   Scott Jarrett, Maricopa's elections director, to county officials.   
      
   “It feels very much like predatory behavior and that we are being   
   stalked,” wrote Jarrett.   
      
   ATTACKS PERSISTED   
      
   Since the 2020 election, Reuters has documented more than 1,000   
   intimidating messages to election officials across the country, including   
   more than 120 that could warrant prosecution, according to legal experts.   
      
   Many officials said they had hoped the harassment would wane over time   
   after the 2020 results were confirmed. But the attacks have persisted,   
   fueled in many cases by right-wing media figures and groups that continue   
   without evidence to cast election officials as complicit in a vast   
   conspiracy by China, Democratic officials and voting equipment   
   manufacturers to rob Trump of a second presidential term.   
      
   In April, local election officials in Arizona participated in a drill   
   simulating violence at a polling site in which several people were killed,   
   according to an April 26 email from Lisa Marra, the president of the   
   Election Officials of Arizona, which represents election administrators   
   from the state's 15 counties. The drill aimed to help officials prepare   
   for Election Day violence, and left participants “understandably,   
   disturbed” said the email to more than a dozen local election directors.   
      
   In a statement, Marra said: "This is just one other tool we can use to   
   ensure election safety for all."   
      
   Maricopa officials appeared at times overwhelmed by threatening posts on   
   social media and right-wing message boards calling for workers to be   
   executed or hung. Some messages sought officials' home addresses,   
   including one that promised “late night visits.” Employees were filmed   
   arriving and leaving work, according to emails among county officials.   
      
   Two days after the Aug. 2 primary election, the county’s information   
   security officer emailed the FBI pleading for help.   
      
   “I appreciate the limitations of what the FBI can do, but I just want to   
   underline this,” wrote Michael Moore, information security officer for the   
   Maricopa County Recorder’s Office. “Our staff is being intimidated and   
   threatened,” he added. “We’re going to continue to find it more and more   
   difficult to get the job done when no one wants to work for elections.”   
      
   A special agent for the FBI acknowledged the agency’s limitations,   
   according to the emails. “As you put it, we are limited in what we can do   
   - we only investigate violations of federal law,” the FBI agent responded   
   in an Aug. 4 email. Reporting threats to local law enforcement is ”the   
   only thing I can suggest,” the agent wrote, “even if at this point it has   
   not resulted in any action.”   
      
   The FBI declined to comment on the agent’s response to Moore. It also   
   declined to confirm or deny the existence of ongoing investigations into   
   the threats.   
      
   Moore did not respond to requests for comment, but Richer, his boss, said   
   in a statement that he greatly appreciated the FBI’s partnership and   
   vigilance. "This is an inherently emotional topic - communications of the   
   most vile nature have been repeatedly sent to my team,” the statement   
   said.   
      
   One anonymous sender using the privacy-protective email service ProtonMail   
   sent “harassing emails” for almost a year, Moore, wrote in an Aug. 4 email   
   to the FBI. One message warned Richer that he’d be “hung as a traitor.”   
      
   “I’d like to have a black and white poster in my office of you hanging   
   from the end of a rope,” the sender wrote.   
      
   The harassment and threats were affecting the mental health of election   
   workers, Jarrett wrote in his Aug. 4 memo. “If our permanent and temporary   
   staff do not feel safe, we will not be able (to) recruit and retain staff   
   for upcoming elections.”   
      
   In all, county officials referred at least 100 messages and social media   
   posts to FBI and state counter-terrorism officials. Reuters found no   
   evidence in the correspondence that officials saw any of the messages as   
   breaching the expansive definition of constitutionally protected free   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)