DOJ warns of “new era” in targeting election officials as 20 charged over threats

March 26, 2024

Axios reports that Dept. of Justice officials are investigating and have charged some 20 people following “dozens” of reported threats against election workers. Many of those threats are said to have originated in the swing state of Arizona during the 2020 and 2022 elections.

John Dixon Keller is the head of the DOJ’s Election Threats Task Force. Speaking at a news conference on Monday, Keller said the U.S. is entering a “new era in which the election community is scapegoated, targeted, and attacked.”

The announcement was made just hours after an Ohio man was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for threatening to kill now Arizona governor Katie Hobbs when she was the Arizona Secretary of State in 2022. 46 year old Joshua Russell was among 13 individuals charged with making threats.

Keller said the task force has received numerous reports since it was created in 2021 to crack down on what the DOJ calls a spike in threats against election officials. Most of the reports received haven’t resulted in prosecution , “Because so much of the hostility does not cross the line into criminal threats, prosecution alone is not the answer,” Keller said.

Some officials worry that personal threats and attacks on election officials or their families are contributing to the normalization of a dangerous election environment.

Keller stated, “Death threats are not debate. Death threats are not a protected constitutional right.”

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