Election workers, along with the rest of America, watched as a violent pro-Trump mob looted the Capitol on January 6, killing five people.
They were terrified and shocked, but not surprised.
“I think it was an attack on our country that was invited,” Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said in an interview. “All of us have said that this kind of misinformation is dangerous, and unfortunately it is the result of this kind of disinformation.”
Hobbs, a Democrat, was drugged, threatened and harassed last year, and he endured months of sustained abuse as a result of then-President Donald Trump’s stolen election lies. There were early incidents that gave an indication of the potential for real action under a mostly verbal and virtual barrage: angry Trump supporters showed up at her home in mid-November, waving flags and shouting because they did not want to believe Joe Biden won does not have the state. What she experienced was not what a civil servant signed up for, and she is still struggling to process what happened to her and the country.
She is one of a dozen election officials and workers interviewed by NBC News and told a similar story: nightmare months of putting violent threats aside, afraid of themselves and their families, of doing an extremely important job that has been made more difficult. by the pandemic. They spoke of persistent trauma, unheard of warnings and fears for the future amid what the Department of Homeland Security acknowledges is a growing threat from domestic extremists fueled at least in part by the presidential transition, as well as other complaints made by false narratives are fueled. , ”And possibly now even more encouraged by the Capitol attack.
Gabriel Sterling, a Republican and a leading election official in Georgia, tried to sound the alarm in December about what he saw as the potential for looming violence. At a dazzling news conference, he warned that ‘someone is going to shoot’ because of the misinformation and lies about the outcome of the election promoted by Trump and repeated and embraced by his supporters.
Sterling said he gets nauseous when he looks at the deadly hooliganism at the Capitol. He knew something like this could happen, but he did not think it would actually happen.
“You could see the logical train going from point A to point B, and if you don’t, it’s irresponsible again,” he told NBC News last week.
‘You just feel depressed’
Electoral workers in Georgia at all levels have described some of the most worrying threats and abuses. They have increased at the moment when it becomes clear that Biden Georgia, a traditionally red state, has turned blue for the first time in decades, state officials said.
Everyone, from Sterling, the electoral system manager, to hourly employees to the Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, also a Republican, was overwhelmed. With the two U.S. Senate contests of the state continuing with the run-up to elections only to take place in January – and which would determine Senate control – workers were targeted last November.
“We were very aware of our environment at all times,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Jordan Fuchs, a Republican.
Fulton County, Georgia election director Richard Barron said his office was inundated with threats of violence and verbal abuse.
“There were people who were just nervous about being here every day,” said Barron, a provincial employee. “At one point, there were a lot of threats about people that we were going to break down in our office. The calls were quite upsetting to the staff. ”
His office faced a bomb threat and employees reported being followed and filmed. Voting workers who tried to pick up and drop off absent ballot papers in garbage cans were blocked by people in cars, Barron said.
His office shared 85 voicemails Barron received in the six days before the Senate on Jan. 5, almost all angry and accusing. At least one apparently referred to the pro-Trump protests planned for Washington the next day, though the caller apparently messed up the month. Extremists openly planned to “occupy” the Capitol by lethal force on January 6, the day the Constitution provides for Congress to count and certify state voters in the presidential race. Trump encouraged his supporters to gather in front of the shovel for a rally and told them to march to the Capitol afterwards.
“You are clearly complicit in treason,” one man said in a poll on Sunday, January 3rd. ‘We think of you on January 6 in DC’
“Which side are you going to be on when the f —— shooting starts, brother?” said another male caller the same day.
Barron said the mostly black staff in the Fulton County constituency regularly face racism, and that callers use the N-word.
‘It’s unfortunate in your work environment. You take it on the chin, ”said Barron’s assistant, Mariska Bodison, who is black. “You just feel depressed. It was one election after another, it was one call after another. ”
According to Fuchs, the state has received many bomb threats at polling stations, while police are investigating and warning one individual who is threatening election workers in Gwinnett County. She also described how Raffensperger’s wife received a graphic message, sexual threats, and said that one of Raffensperger’s family members was the victim of a burglary.
‘Someone entered the house, turned on all the lights and left. “It was a very clear message that we can get from you at all times,” Fuchs said. “It really scared the family.”
Attempts at transparency – such as live streams showing election workers doing their jobs, which other countries have also suffered – have exposed lower-level workers to relentless abuse. A woman packing ballot papers into their appropriate carriers ends up at the core of an unfounded conspiracy theory repeated by Trump. A contractor from Dominion Voting Systems, the maker of the election equipment that has become the target of wild conspiracy theories, was filmed by viewers of the polls and threatened with an animated snare online, warning Sterling of the growing potential for caused violence.
“The reason they have a video of the man is because the process is so transparent, that we allow him to video him,” Sterling said. “We try to be open and transparent and turn it around.”
“We want to help the voters, and we could not do anything about it.”
Officials across the country described similar experiences as their counterparts in Georgia.
“We had to spend an excessive amount of time teaching individuals that these things were just not true,” said George Christenson, county of Milwaukee, about the disinformation spread on social media.
Cobb County election director Janine Eveler said: ‘Something will be tweeted and we will eventually get hundreds of calls. We want to help the voters – and we could not do anything about it because our telephone lines were full. ”
And it all happened amid what officials said was the most challenging election they have ever won. The pandemic increased the way America voted in the middle of a primary cycle, and a few months before a presidential election that was expected to give historic rise.
Lisa Deeley, one of the three commissioners in Philadelphia who runs the city’s election, said she felt earlier that the job was much like a wedding planner. But in 2020, she was knocked on the street and needed police escort wherever she went.
And it took a toll.
“I often feel insecure because of the November election,” she said. ‘I look over my shoulder, look in my rearview mirror, I had nightmares. It definitely had a strong effect on me and my family. ‘
Experts note that the presidential election, despite Trump’s claims against it, was remarkably successful – characterized by high turnout and a relatively short waiting time at the ballot box. Government cybersecurity experts have declared it the safest in US history.
Officials said it was only possible thanks to sleepless nights and weekends working there.
In Pennsylvania, Monroe County Election Director Sara May-Silfee said she worked for 15-16 hours, seven days a week, trying to keep up with voters’ questions, change policies and the big quantity of postal items required for the new ballot of voting votes.
She does not have to deal with the same level of conspiracy theories as many of her peers, but angry voters were the norm. One group once rumbled outside her office about the oppression of voters because they did not understand that the state used early voting process but not machines. She lost 16 pounds between the pre-election and the general election and ate all three meals at her desk.
For some, it was clearly unsustainable: election offices across the state saw staff turnover. May-Silfee said a third of the state’s 67 provincial election directors retired or resigned in the wake of 2020.
She said she lost two of her three staff members in the days before the general election.
“They said they did not pay enough,” she said.
“We reset”
Many election officials have told NBC News that they are worried about future elections.
“We’re reset,” said Scott McDonell, county of Dane County, Wisconsin. “It’s going to take a long time before we return to the level of confidence we had a year ago.”
Restoring trust is also not going to be easy.
“We worked during this election cycle to really help increase transparency and maintain trust,” Hobbs said. “We now have the task of restoring this trust, but it is not we who have helped to destroy it.”
Many have said they are afraid that state legislators will try to write new laws to stop fraud that does not occur.
Many said Trump had disassociated ‘from social media’ from social media – after five were killed in the Capitol attack, while Trump tweeted in support of the rioters. Their phone lines were now quieter, although some said they were still being harassed.
Many took extra precautions during the inauguration to protect themselves and their staff.
“The damage it has done to voters and the integrity of the election is innumerable,” Deeley said.
Going forward, she said, her main goal is to restore confidence.
“Just like [how] “People were repeatedly told about the fraud and there were bad things going on, we have to hit that drum back,” she said. “This is a fair and free election.”