Over a dozen arrested after sending threats to ‘lynch’ election workers | US News

On Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the sentencing of two more people for threatening poll workers, including threats of to ‘lynch’ or ‘hang’ election officials.

The convictions are the result of a Justice Department task force convened in 2021 to examine more than 1,000 ‘hostile or harassing’ messages or contacts with election workers.

‘There are many things that are open to debate in America,’ the attorney general said in a 2021 memo. ‘But the right of all eligible citizens to vote is not one of them. The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, the right from which all other rights ultimately flow.’

On Monday, a man from Iowa was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for threatening to ‘lynch’ and ‘hang’ Republican elected officials for not overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Mark Rissi, 64, was arrested after leaving death threats in voicemails sent to two Arizona officials: Clint Hickman, a member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, and Mark Brnovich, the former Attorney General of Arizona.

In his message to Hickman, Rissi asked the local official to remember the oath he swore on a Bible before taking office.

‘When we come to lynch your stupid lying Commie [expletive], you’ll remember that you lied on the [expletive] Bible, you piece of [expletive]. You’re gonna die, you piece of [expletive]. We’re going to hang you. We’re going to hang you.’

In the second message, he threatened the Arizona Attorney General to ‘Do your job, Brnovich, or you will hang with those [expletive] in the end. We will see to it. Torches and pitchforks. That’s your future, [expletive]. Do your job.’

Earlier this month, Frederick Francis Goltz was sentenced to three and a half years in prison with three years of probation after threatening a ‘mass shooting of poll workers.’

Goltz, a 52-year-old from Texas, also targeted officials and private citizens in Maricopa County, Arizona after the 2020 election.

In November 2022, he posted the name, home address, and telephone numbers of a lawyer working for the Maricopa County Attorney’s office to far-right social media platforms Gab and Patriots.win.

‘It would be a shame if someone got to [sic] this children. There are some crazies out there. This kind of info shouldn’t be readily available on the internet,’ he wrote. He quickly followed it up with: ‘Someone needs to get these people AND their children. The children are the most important message to send.’

When another user told him the official’s children should be off-limits, he said: ‘NOTHING is off limits. It’s people like you that are supposedly with us, who don’t have the stomach to do what it takes to get our country back.’

The Justice Department also announced that two more suspects have pleaded guilty to sending threats on Thursday. Among them was a Georgia resident who called for the deaths of his local election officials and their families, who he called ‘treasonous Chinese agents.’

The threats against election workers may already be having an effect on election workers in the US. A total of 11 percent of officials told the Brennan Center for Justice that they would likely leave before the 2024 presidential election.

Another 45 percent said they were concerned for their safety or the safety of their coworkers in the future.

‘A functioning democracy requires that the public servants who administer our elections are able to do their jobs without fearing for their lives,’ Attorney General Garland said.

‘The Justice Department will continue to investigate and prosecute those who target election officials and election workers as part of our broader efforts to safeguard the right to vote and to defend our democracy.’

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