Attorney General Merrick B. Garland says the Biden Justice Department is putting “intense focus” on growing and persistent threats to election workers across the country.
Mr. Garland held a virtual meeting Thursday night with more than 1,400 election officials and workers to discuss the threats, which he said are “a problem that will not wait.”
“It is a problem that is the subject of intense focus by the highest levels of the Department of Justice,” he said. “Only by protecting those who administer the election process can we ensure that the right to vote, itself, is protected.”
The attorney general in June said he was committed to expanding the department’s efforts to protect voting rights and to investigate and prosecute any violations of federal law.
Mr. Garland reiterated his previous comments that “the dramatic increase in menacing and violent threats against all manner of state and local election workers, ranging from the highest administrators to volunteer poll workers … [undermines] our electoral process.”
A survey released in April by the Brennan Center for Justice found one in three election officials feel unsafe because of their job and nearly one in five said threats to their lives were a job-related concern.
The Election Threats Task Force, created in June, is collaborating with federal agencies to “better understand and deter threats to elections,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said.
Mr. Garland said officials are “under no illusions that our expressions of concern and assignment of law enforcement resources has solved this problem.”
He also urged election workers to report all election-related threats to the FBI, saying it will “help us help you.”
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, called police last year when dozens of armed protesters showed up outside her home less than three weeks after the election.
The state’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy released a joint statement describing the protest as “mob-like behavior.”
“This mob-like behavior is an affront to basic morality and decency,” they said. “Anyone can air legitimate grievances to Secretary Benson’s office through civil and democratic means, but terrorizing children and families at their own homes is not activism.”
The Department of Homeland Security issued an internal bulletin this month regarding online calls for violence fueled by election conspiracy theories, ABC News reported.
“Some conspiracy theories associated with reinstating former President Trump have included calls for violence if desired outcomes are not realized,” a DHS official told ABC.
The official reportedly said the department did not have specific evidence of an imminent threat, but the bulletin noted that previous “circumstances have illustrated that calls for violence could expand rapidly in the public domain and may be occurring outside of publicly available channels.”
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