'You are the cancer': Swing state election official admits having PTSD from MAGA threats

17 September 2024

One public employee tasked with overseeing elections in a battleground state's most populous county has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and is soon leaving his profession due to constant death threats from former President Donald Trump's supporters.

A recent article in the New Yorker reported on the new documentary "Denial," which is about how MAGA-fueled conspiracy theories about the 2020 election have impacted the lives of election workers. The film is shown from the perspective of Maricopa County, Arizona supervisor Bill Gates — a lifelong Republican and Federalist Society member who nonetheless became a prime target of Trump supporters for certifying election results that led to President Joe Biden narrowly winning the Grand Canyon State in 2020.

The documentary follows Gates ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, in which Arizonans were voting in a hotly contested election in which Democrats eventually won both the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races. "Denial" showed how Gates was regularly subjected to threats and vitriol by believers in election conspiracies promoted by both Trump and Republican Kari Lake, a former news anchor who lost her bid for the governorship by a razor-thin margin to Democrat Katie Hobbs.

In one exchange with filmmakers, Gates choked back tears as he was discussing the effect his job as an county official was having on his personal life. The Maricopa County supervisor said he was diagnosed with PTSD due to the constant and relentless threats and harassment from conspiracy theorists.

"This, I can’t do on camera—or I can do it on your camera only. But I can’t do it on anyone else’s," Gates said in one interview, which the New Yorker said showed Gates' face showing "micro-expressions of pain."

The article described scenes from one Maricopa County Board of Supervisors meeting in which attendees verbally attacked county officials during the public comment session. One woman upset about the 2020 election quoted former President John F. Kennedy when saying: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution necessary."

"You are the cancer that is tearing this nation apart," another man said during the meeting.

Election workers outside of Arizona have also been subjected to regular death threats from far-right conspiracy theorists. Since the 2020 election, some poll workers have been attending sessions preparing them for the possibility of intimidation campaigns ahead of the 2024 election. And the publication Stateline reported earlier this month that some GOP-aligned officials on election boards may attempt to interfere with the certification of the election in certain battleground states if the results aren't satisfactory for Trump.

"There is broad concern that despite the checks and balances built into the voting system, Republican members of state and county boards tasked with certifying elections will be driven by conspiracy theories and refuse to fulfill their roles if former President Donald Trump loses again," Stateline reporter Matt Vasilogambros wrote.

Click here to read the New Yorker's report in its entirety (subscription required).

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