Law enforcement officials are taking steps to install guardrails ahead of the 2024 election. Particularly in the battleground state of Arizona, tensions are expected to increase due to persistent misinformation starting in 2020.
Arizona’s election workers and public officials face constant threats and harassment, while candidates with a penchant for conspiracy theories have turned the state into a hotbed of misinformation.
Arizona’s top federal prosecutor, Gary Restaino, said Monday that threats against election officials in battleground states account for more than a third of all cases related to federal election intimidation nationwide, and that more threats are on the way. He said he has not been charged.
A rematch between former President Donald Trump and President Biden is all but inevitable, and election officials and experts are warning that a similar perfect storm could form in the 2024 election.
“We don’t want to be the leader in this area,” Restaino said at a news conference. “But we are and we are actively working on it.”
Arizona’s 2020 presidential election was one of the closest in the nation, with Biden winning over Trump by just over 10,000 votes. The narrow margin spurred an onslaught of misinformation amplified by Trump and other prominent Republicans.
Arizona was one of seven states where “alternate electors” were called and baselessly claimed that they were “duly elected” electors. It was expected that then-Vice President Mike Pence would recognize the electors who supported Trump, rather than the true electors who had cast their votes for Biden.
An investigation into the fake elector scheme is ongoing, a spokesperson for the Arizona attorney general said. The agency declined to comment on the schedule.
Election denialism was also a major theme in the 2022 gubernatorial race between Republican Kari Lake, a former news anchor and Trump ally, and then-Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. Mr. Lake claimed that the election was stolen from Mr. Trump, and when he lost to Mr. Hobbs by about 17,000 votes, he also claimed that he was a victim of a stolen election.
Mr. Hobbs, who headed the office that oversaw the election, staunchly defended the accuracy of the tally.
Mr. Lake is running for the Senate in 2024, and Mr. Trump is seen as the Republican presidential nominee.
Catherine Kenneally, Director of Threat Analysis and Prevention at the U.S. branch of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said of election denialism, “As long as these campaigns continue, this kind of rhetoric will never go away.”
Election workers and public officials are at increased risk of intimidation given the perception that election fraud persists in the state.
Restaino said Monday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed 20 prosecutions for intimidation of the voting community, seven of which involve Arizona officials. Most threats come from “outsiders” from other states.
“Among the battleground states…Arizona in particular has continued to garner this kind of attention since 2020,” Keneally said. “I don’t think it’s at all surprising that many of these threats that the Department of Justice is prosecuting are against individuals who are in Arizona, and by individuals who are not even in Arizona.”
“Interest in the election never went away,” she added.
ohio men Hobbs was sentenced Monday to 2 1/2 years in prison for sending death threats to Hobbs during the state’s 2022 primary and general elections.
Early this month, men in massachusetts He was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison in February 2021 for making an online threat to blow up Hobbs’ campaign office.
And the Iowa guy This summer, he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for making separate election-related threats against two Arizona congressmen. He turned himself in to jail on Monday.
“Given that Arizona continues to be a battleground state, we expect that we will continue to be in the crosshairs of these threats, so to speak,” Restaino said. “So we will continue to pay attention to that.”
Threats against public officials are notoriously difficult to prosecute because of the fine line between intimidation and protected speech.
John Dixon said the “vast majority” of threats reported to the Justice Department’s Election Threat Task Force, created in 2021 to respond to threats related to 2020 election denialism, were “true and false.” The head of the Keller Special Committee does not meet the legal standard of “threat.”
“Prosecution alone is not the solution, as much of the hostility does not rise to the level of criminal threats,” he said. “We have to do better as a society. Personal threats and attacks against government officials and their families have become commonplace, contributing to an electoral environment in which people commit previously unthinkable crimes.” It becomes.”
Threats against election workers and public servants are on the rise across the country, causing an exodus from elected office.
a 2022 Brennan Center Poll It found that 30 percent of officials surveyed knew at least one election worker who quit their job due in part to safety concerns. About 60% of officials expressed concern that intimidation or harassment of election workers would make it difficult to recruit and retain them.
Officials said Monday that a Justice Department task force regularly works with state and national election officials to track “any viable threats” to the election community. The FBI conducts “scenario-based situations” to train how to respond to election threats and considers election security one of the agency’s “top national security priorities.” .
Both agencies called on the community to help their friends and neighbors avoid falling into the “rabbit hole of misinformation.”
“In many ways, we say this is deja vu. The same two candidates are running. A lot of this feels very similar,” Keneally said. Ta. “But the difference this time is that these election denialist networks have had four years to gain influence online and spread these beliefs.”
This deeper state of election denialism, along with malign foreign influence and the numerous global conflicts that have worsened since 2020, are sounding alarm bells as the 2024 elections approach.
“It’s creating a very volatile threat environment, and I’m not really sure we’re really prepared,” Keneally added.
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