Online threats led to real world dangers. Law enforcement were posted outside the homes of some election officials. To feel safer, at least one official s family moved in with in-laws. In more disturbing cases, election workers heard strangers knocking at their front doors, and menacing voices on the other end of the phone who uttered racial slurs and promised hangings.
Before Trump s disinformation campaign began in earnest, election departments around the country were already battered as they struggled to handle the myriad repercussions of the pandemic.
In the Fulton County office, 62-year-old Beverly Walker died from the virus. Walker had worked at the county for two decades, where she had a reputation as a maternal figure, thanks in part to her goodie drawer filled with tea, coffee, and snacks.
Jessica McGowan / Getty Images
As his time in the White House came to a close, former president Donald Trump became obsessed with one office in downtown Atlanta and the workers there, making the Fulton County elections department a target of conspiracy theories and lies, which led to violent threats and intimidation.
Fulton County employees, as well as election workers around the country, are still grappling with the emotional and psychological trauma they suffered as a result of Trump s disinformation campaign about the 2020 election, and it may have lasting consequences for recruiting and retention in the vital, but often under-appreciated field.
Atlanta Magazine
Inside the battle for Fulton County’s votes
Reporter Johnny Kauffman spent four months embedded in the Fulton County elections department as its staff fought to protect democracy and their own lives all while the eyes of the world were on Georgia.
Photograph by Audra Melton
On March 11, 2020, the Atlanta Hawks lost at home to the New York Knicks in overtime, 131 to 136, and the NBA abruptly suspended its season due to Covid-19. State Farm Arena’s newly renovated luxury suites would sit empty. And, sometime over those next eight months, water pressure began to build in the plumbing of one of the deserted bathrooms. In the wee hours of Election Day, November 3, a urinal overflowed, and water seeped through the floor and cascaded into the room below where the Fulton County elections department had been processing mail-in ballots for days. It rained down near the machines used to open envelopes, optical scanners, and black plastic totes filled with ballots.
Photograph by Audra Melton
On March 11, 2020, the Atlanta Hawks lost at home to the New York Knicks in overtime, 131 to 136, and the NBA abruptly suspended its season due to Covid-19. State Farm Arena’s newly renovated luxury suites would sit empty. And, sometime over those next eight months, water pressure began to build in the plumbing of one of the deserted bathrooms. In the wee hours of Election Day, November 3, a urinal overflowed, and water seeped through the floor and cascaded into the room below where the Fulton County elections department had been processing mail-in ballots for days. It rained down near the machines used to open envelopes, optical scanners, and black plastic totes filled with ballots.