'Someone's Going To Get Killed': Ga. Official Blasts GOP Silence On Election Threats
A top official in Georgia said Republicans attacking the state's election system are "complicit" in harassment and threats against election workers, including death threats against Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his family in recent weeks.
"It has all gone too far," Gabriel Sterling said forcefully at a Tuesday afternoon press conference. "Mr. President, you have not condemned this language or these actions. Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions."
A top election official in Georgia had strong words for President Trump and other top Republican leaders who have attacked Georgia's election system in recent weeks after reports of harassment and death threats against officials overseeing the state's recount.
"Someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to get shot, someone's going to get killed," Gabriel Sterling, with the secretary of state's office, said Tuesday afternoon in an emotional and forceful news conference. "It's not right."
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Among other things, a Twitter thread accusing a young technician working on the recount of altering votes led to his identity being released and calls for him to be "hung for treason."
Meanwhile, caravans of horn-honking Trump supporters constantly parade past Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's private residence, and his wife has reportedly received sexually explicit threats. The president himself, who has falsely suggested he won Georgia's 16 electoral votes, has called on Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to overturn the election.
In a tweet Tuesday evening responding to Sterling's news conference, Trump again falsely alleged massive voter fraud in Georgia.
Sterling, a fixture in recent weeks as a calm, even-tempered source of election information and factoids about the complicated counting processes, unloaded on Trump, both Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue and other GOP officials that have egged on the party's base to believe in widespread fraud.
"It has to stop," he said. "Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language. Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions. This has to stop. We need you to step up. And if you take a position of leadership, show some."
Sterling said the situation came to a head with a report that a Gwinnett County technician was outed and receiving death threats after a video circulated online purportedly showing him manipulating data as part of an official recount.
