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Anxiety runs deep in Georgia as voters worry about heated rhetoric spurring violence
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PEACHTREE CORNERS, Ga. — By December 2020, Donald Trump and his allies had been making false claims about widespread election fraud for weeks. Top election officials were facing threats.
Then a young technician who worked for the company that makes Georgia’s voting machines started receiving death threats, too. So did his family. Walking into a press conference at the Georgia State Capitol, Gabriel Sterling, a top elections official in the Secretary of State’s office, was fuming.
“It has all gone too far. All of it. It has to stop,” he said. “Someone’s going to get hurt. Someone’s going to get shot. Someone’s going to get killed.”
Four years later with another election underway, this heated climate has persisted.
Former President Trump has been the target of two assassination attempts, including one at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., that left one man dead. Meanwhile Trump’s warnings of the potential for election fraud and language about immigration have fueled threats against election workers and some immigrant communities.
The FBI warned in an October bulletin to local and state officials around the country, obtained by WABE, that extremists with election grievances could turn to violence in the coming weeks. The bureau urged stepped up precautions around possible targets such as polling places and election offices.
“I would think we’re more prepared this time because now, I hate to say it, it’s old hat,” Sterling said in a recent interview. “What I get concerned about is some new tactic.”
Sterling said law enforcement and election officials have to be on guard to contend with novel strategies to subvert the vote. In one security briefing, he recalled law enforcement suggesting parking cars alongside a set of windows at a polling place.
“I said, why?” Sterling recounted. “To protect against a bomb attack. That’s the level we’re at now with some of these things.”
Sterling said dedicated election officials are doing everything they can to ensure a smooth election — and that voters should feel safe casting their ballots. He also hopes touting a consistent message of fair elections eventually breaks through the misinformation-soaked environment.
“It’s kind of like the end of Mr. Smith goes to Washington, when he’s sitting there doing his filibuster on the floor,” Sterling said, referring to the 1939 Frank Capra film. “And finally senators say, there’s no way he’s still saying this stuff if there’s not some truth to what he’s saying.”
But that hasn’t happened yet.
Trump has so far declined to say outright he will accept the results of this election, saying he will only do so if it is a “fair and legal and good election.” He and his allies have already made false claims about election fraud, disaster relief and immigrants.
After a grand jury indicted Trump in Georgia on charges that he tried to subvert the 2020 election result, to which he has pleaded not guilty, the jurors received a torrent of online threats.
Already, Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has amplified a debunked story about a voting machine in Georgia flipping a Trump vote to a vote for Vice President Kamala Harris during early voting.
And in recent weeks, Trump-aligned members of the Georgia State Election Board have passed rules that seemed to allow local election board members to vote against certifying election results. When a judge undercut those rules, he received death threats online.
“He’s got a huge target on his back”
Four years ago, talk of a stolen election, despite multiple audits and recounts proving otherwise, helped propel Daryl Kidd to Washington, D.C. on January 6th, where a mob of Trump supporters violently breached the Capitol.
Wearing a Trump Save America hat outside a Trump rally in Atlanta earlier this month, Kidd said he did not participate in any of the violence that day. But he did have doubts about the 2020 election.
“This time, I think it’s going to be more secure,” Kidd said. “In Georgia anyway, I think it will be more protected.”
A controversial overhaul of Georgia election laws has given him some confidence. Kidd is less sure about other states. He said he would not rule out protesting the result again.
Waiting in line nearby and decked out in red, friends Tina McKay and Dorie Walters have been processing the more recent political violence — the assassination attempts against Trump. They said the attempts did give them pause about coming to a campaign rally, but not for long.
“I thought about it when it first happened, I thought how scary that would be, but as soon as I was able to get a ticket here, I didn’t think twice about it,” McKay said. “I do fear for him because I think he’s got a huge target on his back,” Walters said.
The motives behind the two assassination attempts remain unclear. Walters and McKay, like other voters at the rally, said they blame Democrats, not Trump, for spiking the political temperature.
Both campaigns have described their opponents as grave threats to the country. But it is Trump who talks of bypassing Democratic norms and uses language laced with violent imagery, personal attacks and incendiary claims. His own former chief of staff, John Kelly, in remarks published by The New York Times this week called Trump a “fascist.”
At his Atlanta rally, Trump called on supporters to help “defeat the enemy at all levels of combat.”
Some of his harshest rhetoric has targeted immigrants. At a rally on Thursday, he blamed Harris for "an invasion of criminal migrants," saying the U.S. had become a "garbage can for the world."
For Daniela Usurin, who is originally from Uruguay, Trump’s hardline stance is welcome.
Usurin said illegal immigration reflects poorly on immigrants like her. But Trump has made false claims about migrants who are legally in the country, too. From the debate stage, he amplified a false story about migrants in Springfield, Ohio eating cats and dogs. The community became overwhelmed with bomb threats.
“As far as those issues in Ohio, I really can’t say what’s the reality,” Usurin said.
The reality is that city and state officials have debunked the claims as false. But many at the Trump rally say they believe them, or at least the campaign’s description of the country facing an invasion of illegal immigrants.
Many immigrant communities are fearful.
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“It’s just dividing us even more”
At a recent Democratic canvassing kickoff at Peachy Corners Cafe in the Atlanta suburbs, Trump’s rhetoric was weighing on many of the volunteers picking up campaign flyers, Vietnamese coffee and bubble tea.
“It’s just dividing us even more, so unnecessarily, with these non-truths and made-up stories,” said Tahmida Shamsuddin, who immigrated from Bangladesh two decades ago.
“And I never felt like I was anything less than because I came here, got an education, got a job and became what I hope is a contributing citizen. It’s personal for me and it’s hurtful,” she said.
While Shamsuddin, who was wearing a Harris-Walz camouflage hat, is committed to the campaign work, she said knocking on doors of strangers to talk about the election can be anxiety-inducing in this environment.
At a high-top by the espresso machine, Tha Vin said he just came in for a quiet spot to read his comic books. He said the language to describe immigrants is shaping his vote though.
“I’m a gun owner, like I find I want to vote Republican,” Vin said. “But the rhetoric toward immigrants has been something that has made me not want to vote Republican.”
Vin came to the U.S. as a refugee from Cambodia in 1980. He said he fled from an authoritarian regime. Preserving democracy is one of the issues motivating him.
Vin fondly remembers his family receiving a welcome basket within a few days of arriving in the U.S. He feels that spirit has now faded. But he said the political climate has made him more resolved to vote. He is wrangling the schedules of his son, niece and nephew, who turned 18 this year, so they can go to the polls as a family.
“We want to make it a big deal,” he said. “I want us as a family to symbolically vote in a way that shows we’re a part of this country.”
Vin said he sees his vote as more than a choice for president. For him, it is a way to assert he belongs in the country that gave him refuge all those years ago.
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