Death threats are creating a mass exodus of election officials

“Hey, Rick,” the voicemail said. “Two hundred and thirty four years ago, the founding caucasian fathers of America gave us the Second Amendment. Time’s running out, Richard. We’re coming after you and every motherfucker that stole this election with our Second Amendment, subpoenas be damned, you’re going to be served lead, you fucking enemy communist cocksucker. You will be served lead.”

This was just one of the nearly 150 voicemails that were left for Richard Barron, elections director of Georgia’s Fulton County, an area that includes Atlanta, during the week between Dec. 25 and Jan. 1.

On December 5, former President Donald Trump singled Barron out at a rally in Valdosta, Georgia. He showed a video of Barron to the hundreds of attendees, and voiced conspiracies about voter fraud in Georgia. “So, if you just take the crime of what those Democratic workers were doing,” said Trump, “that’s ten times more than I need to win the state.” When Barron appears on the screen, the audience begins to boo…

Physical threats began as well. “We also began to see people just across the street from the warehouse where we are now,” Barron added. “They started to do surveillance on my staff, taking pictures of all of the individuals that would come in and go in and out of the warehouse, they would take pictures of their license plates.”