Rusty Bauers, the former Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, who played a key role in confronting attempts to cancel the 2020 presidential election, came to his area east of Phoenix the next day after Christmas to see the horrible scene.
His house, located on a soil road in the unfinished part of the desert, was surrounded by sheriff's assistants. The unknown reported that there is a homemade bomb inside and a woman killed.
The incident with a blow, a jocular call to emergency services, aimed at the reaction of law enforcement agencies, became not just a terrible moment for Bauerz and his family. It was one of many violent threats and intimidation acts that determined the lives of different officials after the 2020 elections. And now they throw a shadow on the 2024 campaign, as Americans are preparing to vote during the primary elections that will start this month.
The members of the Visconsin Supreme Court suffered a wave of threats-many of them are gemenic and anti-Semitic-after they made 4-3 decisions in December 2020 to support Joe Baiden's victory over Trump.
Karofski, who is part of this minor majority, said she was considering threats as an attempt to intimidate judges to change their decisions.
The day before Sheriff's assistants surrounded the Bauers House, an incident that was not previously reported - Margor Taylor Green, a Republican from Georgia, became the object of attempting to be beaten for Christmas. According to reports on social networks, both politicians and local media, there was also Congressman Brandon Williams, a Republican from New York. On Wednesday, Florida's federal authorities arrested a man and accused him of a threat by killing Congressman Eric Sulwell (California) and his children.
"This is just a small picture of a greater trend that included threats to domestic violence, provides our safe trips, teaches our children, reports news, presents its voters and ensures the safety of our communities," Garland told reporters. “These threats of violence are unacceptable. They threaten our structure of democracy. "
Stephen Levitsky, Professor of Harvard Government, which studies democracy around the world, said that politicians and election workers are suffering from life, are often forced to take new security measures or other guarantees.
It also affects decision making as officials try to do their work safely. Violent threats "make us less democratic political system" because they change political incentives, Levitsky said. Politicians, for example, have recognized that they have changed their voices because of the fear of their families.
Levitsky noted that although violent threats cover the political spectrum, the "vast majority" comes from activists and other far -right. It is important that these threats are often not discouraged by their representatives in the government, he said. Instead, Trump and others sometimes encouraged and justified this behavior.
"So it not only intimidates people who hold a position, but also changes the appearance of expectant people who will occupy positions," Mason said.
A study of the initiative of overcoming the differences between Princeton University, which, together with Civicpulse, monitors political violence and threats aimed at election officials, has shown that women and color people who are much more likely to threaten violence are also more likely to move away from work.
But officials also said that it is also important for the public to know when officials are threatened for doing their work.
State Secretary of the State of Minne Shenna Bellouse, who at the end of December removed Trump from the Presidential Presidential Elections in accordance with the constitutional rebellion point, became the subject of criticism the next day after she made public.
"I was ready for anger, shocks and critics," Bellouse said, Democrat, in an interview. “But I was not ready for aggressive and threatening messages not only to me but also to my family members. I was also not ready for this incident. "
The incident, she added "seemed to be directed to send me a message to make me silence or inspire fear, and it is unacceptable."
On Wednesday, Gabriel Sterling, the Chief Operational and Financial Director of the State Secretary of the Secretary of State Georgia, called the police chief in his hometown Sandy Springs in the Atlanta suburbs and asked if everything was fine with him. The police chief received a call about the active threat at home Sterling.
Sterling arrived home up to 14 police cars near his house.
"This is most annoyed," Sterling, a Republican, said in an interview. "The purpose of these things, no matter who does it, is to multiply panic and concern and spend emotional and real resources for people."
Sterling was a key election official in Georgia during the 2020 presidential election. He strongly opposed Trump's attempts to question the results of the elections and threats to election workers after the vote.
"Someone will hurt," Sterling said then. “Someone will be shot. Someone will be killed. "
Sterling called this warning prophetic, considering how much the threats of violence became. In response to such intimidation, "you put on a pants for a big boy and continue to do your job," he said. "You do not allow people who are trying to undermine institutes, undermine institutions."
Like sterling, Bauers were repeatedly threatened and persecuted after the 2020 elections. He was on behalf of the law enforcement agencies received a call about a fake message about a killed woman and a pipe bomb in his home. His wife and adult grandson were inside when police appeared.
"All this is simply quenching," said Bauers, who testified in 2022, together with Sterling, before the House of Representatives Committee, which investigates the attack on January 6 , The Washington Post. "I don't know if someone is trying to make our lives unhappy or why, and there is just uncertainty."
Karofski, Judge of the Visconsin Supreme Court, said that she considers it important to inform the public what officials are dealing with.
"We are at a time when our democracy is literally struck and we need to understand whether we are just about to pass it on to a group of rebels who think it is quite normal to use violence and intimidation to get decisions they want to get in the courtroom," Karofski said. “Will we have democracy where people adhere to the rule of law? And if I do not support, and if other people do not support and we will not talk about it, we will lose this battle. "
