'An existential threat': Violent harassment over the 2020 election haunts election workers...

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Grace Panetta
@grace_panetta
New: The defamation lawsuit 2 Georgia election workers filed last week against The Gateway Pundit not only shows the toll of violent harassment, but also highlights just how few of those who threaten election officials have been held accountable by the law

'An existential threat': Violent harassment over the 2020 election haunts election workers, but few...
A recent defamation lawsuit against a right-wing website highlights how little recourse rank-and-file election workers have for violent threats.
businessinsider.com
8:10 AM · Dec 7, 2021

https://www.businessinsider.com/lawsuit-shows-few-consequence-for-those-who-threaten-election-workers-2021-12

Ruby Freeman was among the tens of thousands of Americans who helped serve the need for more election workers in her community in 2020, joining her daughter Wandrea "Shaye" Moss, a full-time employee in the Fulton County, Georgia elections office, to process and count absentee ballots in the November election.

Just two months later, Freeman was the target of a relentless online harassment campaign over the election lies perpetuated by former President Donald Trump and his allies.

Freeman and Moss, represented by the nonprofit group Protect Democracy and their co-counsels, are now suing the popular right-wing website The Gateway Pundit, its founder Jim Hoft, and his brother and Gateway Pundit writer Joe Hoft, for defamation and intentional inflection of emotional distress.

As Trump invoked her name over a dozen times on the January 2 phone call pressuring Georgia officials to "find" enough votes to win him the election, Freeman fled her home on the advice of the FBI at the beginning of January, staying in Airbnbs and avoiding using credit cards that could be used to trace her.

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