Threats against American election workers have intensified, according to a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice. 70 percent of nearly 1,000 polled local election workers state that threats have increased since the 2020 election. 38 percent of them report that they have experienced threats, harassment or abuse.
Identified those personally responsible
After the last election, then-President Donald Trump and his supporters falsely singled out election workers and an employee of the vote-counting company Dominion as personally involved in election fraud. After that, among others, two election workers, a mother and a daughter in Georgia, were subjected to extensive harassment and threats.
– I have had to move from my house, because the FBI says it is not safe to live there. I have lost my name and my reputation. I have lost my sense of security, the mother testified later in court.
Eric Coomer was an executive at Dominion, the company that manufactures the vote-counting system used in the 2020 presidential election. Like the two election workers, he was named on national television when his private Trump-critical posts were used as arguments that he had tampered with the election. Dominion was accused of rigging its machines, converting votes for Donald Trump into votes for Joe Biden, which could never be proven.
The Dominion boss was threatened – still scared
– I heard my name on nationwide TV. I left the building I was in and chain smoked half a pack of cigarettes just to calm myself down. I didn’t know what to do, says Eric Coomer in Documents from the Outside: Trump, the Vote Count and the Lawyers.
The threats that followed the hanging mean that Eric Coomer still, four years later, lives in fear.
To deal with the increased threat picture, 92 percent of the offices and polling stations have introduced increased security measures ahead of the upcoming elections, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
See Document from the outside: Trump, the vote count and the lawyers at SVT Play or on SVT 2 at 22.00 on 3/11.