‘Someone is going to get shot.’ GA official asks Trump to condemn threats amid recount
A top Georgia election official called on President Donald Trump to stop instigating his supporters to commit “potential acts of violence” after an elections worker was threatened with a noose on social media.
Gabriel Sterling, the state’s voting system implementation manager, made the comments in a Tuesday news conference after a “20-something-year-old” elections contractor in Gwinnett County was told he should be “hung for treason.”
Sterling called the threat against the election worker the “straw that broke the camel’s back” following weeks of attacks from Trump and his supporters against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his office following President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
The secretary of state’s office has spent the past several weeks thoroughly debunking the false and baseless claims pushed by Trump and his supporters.
“Mr. President, it looks like you likely lost the state of Georgia. We’re investigating. There’s always a possibility,” Sterling said. “What you don’t have the ability to do — and you need to step up and say this — is stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone is going to get hurt. Someone is going to get shot. Someone is going to get killed.”
The threats
The worker, a contractor for Dominion Voting Systems, was threatened after a video falsely claiming him of “mishandling” election data surfaced online, leading people to track down the worker’s name and his family. Sterling said the employee was only transferring a report to a county computer so he could read it.
In addition to the threat against the worker, Raffensperger and his wife also have been threatened over the election results. After their address was published online, caravans of Trump supporters have come by the house, and trespassers have come onto the couple’s property. Raffensperger’s wife is receiving “sexualized threats” on her cell phone, Sterling said.
“I’ve got police protection outside of my house. Fine, I took a higher profile job. I get it,” Sterling said. “Secretary ran for office. His wife knew that, too. This kid took a job. He just took a job, and it’s just wrong.”
Those around Trump, Sterling said, weren’t “giving him the best advice” about the election situation in Georgia. Sterling said it’s time for Trump to “look forward.”
“If you want to run for (election) in four years, do it,” Sterling said. “But everything we’re seeing right now, there’s not a path.”
“This is elections. This is the backbone of democracy, and all of you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this. It’s too much.”
Trump, Republicans question the integrity of Georgia elections
Sterling’s comments come after weeks of Trump and other prominent Republicans questioning the integrity of the state’s election results.
Georgia’s two Republican U.S. Senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, called for Raffensperger’s resignation just days after the Nov. 3 election, calling the process “an embarrassment.”
Trump has pushed false claims about the state’s election process, including that Georgia officials are unable to verify signatures on absentee ballot envelopes.The signature or identification of Georgia voters is checked twice during the absentee ballot process, per state election law.
One check occurs when a ballot is requested, and the other check occurs after the ballot is cast. Once a signature is matched, the outer envelope is separated from the final ballot to protect voter secrecy, as outlined in Georgia law.
Trump also falsely claimed that machines from Dominion Voting Systems, Georgia’s provider, were deleting and switching votes nationwide. Pro V&V, a U.S. Election Assistance Commission-certified testing laboratory, audited a random sample of Georgia’s voting machines late last month. The secretary of state’s office reported that the company found no evidence that the machines were tampered with or compromised.
In addition to the false claims, Trump also attacked Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, his one-time ally who certified Georgia’s election results last week. Kemp called for an audit comparing the signatures of absentee envelopes against the state’s voter database, but Trump wanted a stronger response.
Monday, Trump suggested that Kemp use his emergency powers to “do a match of signatures on envelopes.” A Kemp spokesperson said that isn’t possible under Georgia law.
“The Secretary of State, who is an elected constitutional officer, has oversight over elections that cannot be overridden by executive order,” spokesperson Cody Hall said in a statement.
“As the governor has said repeatedly, he will continue to follow the law and encourage the Secretary of State to take reasonable steps — including a sample audit of signatures — to restore trust and address serious issues that have been raised,” Hall added.
Sterling called out Loeffler and Perdue in addition to Trump during Tuesday’s news conference.
“When the (senators) called for us to resign and then the president called Brad Raffensperger ... an enemy of the people, that helped open the floodgates to this kind of crap,” Sterling said.
“There are also some people out there,” he added. “At this point in the social media world ... there are some nutballs out there who are going to take this and say, ‘The president told me to do this.’ You have to be responsible.”
This story was originally published December 1, 2020 at 4:20 PM with the headline "‘Someone is going to get shot.’ GA official asks Trump to condemn threats amid recount."