The Sunday Story: Election workers under siege

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🗓️ 2 July 2023

⏱️ 26 minutes

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Summary

"They said that they were coming for my family and somebody would have to pay for this."

Across the US, election workers say they are being verbally abused, followed, harassed and threatened. Much of this animosity is being driven by misinformation, particularly Donald Trump's ongoing lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

NPR's Chris Arnold reached out to thousands of election workers and heard back from many across 22 states who fear for their safety, the safety of their families and even their pets. In this episode of The Sunday Story, Chris tells Ayesha Rascoe about his investigation—and how the questions he asked led him to a rural county in Oregon, where election workers are beefing up their security and worrying about what's coming in 2024.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the Sunday story, I'm Aisha Roscoe.
0:07.0	Before I became host of Weekend Edition Sunday and this show,
0:11.0	I worked as a political reporter covering the White House.
0:15.0	And, you know, when I was covering Trump,
0:18.0	I went to a rally in Greenville, North Carolina.
0:21.0	This was 2019.
0:23.0	It was almost like a rock concert or like this sporting event.
0:29.0	Like the music was so loud and like something like,
0:33.0	you could feel it like in your chest shaking.
0:36.0	People were getting worked up and you could feel it in the atmosphere.
0:49.0	And so by the time that Trump started talking and he mentioned the squad...
0:53.0	He's the four congresswomen, always in that lovely...
0:57.0	This was a group of lawmakers, all women of color,
1:00.0	who at the time they were new to Congress.
1:03.0	And Trump had tweeted that they should go back to where they came from.
1:08.0	Of course, these were all Americans.
1:12.0	Representative Ilhan Omar.
1:15.0	People started yelling, straighter,
1:18.0	and all these incendiary things.
1:21.0	And then they started chanting.
1:27.0	It was really surreal.
1:32.0	I was like one of the only black people sitting in the stadium
	...

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