Georgia election worker Wandrea “Shaye” Moss encouraged her mother to get a temporary job as a vote counter. She never knew that it would throw the pair into the path of conspiracy, hatred and violence wrought by Donald Trump and his acolytes.
According to an exclusive report from Reuters, Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, became the targets of death threats, harassment and racial slurs by supporters of Trump after Trump mentioned them by name, first in telephone conversations with Georgia election officials, then in various interviews about his election tampering claims, which have all been debunked.
In his call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who does not support Trump’s claims, Trump referred to Freeman by name no fewer than 18 times. Trump called called the 62-year-old temp worker a “professional vote scammer,” a “hustler” and a “known political operative” who “stuffed the ballot boxes” even though Freeman was never involved in a campaign or an election before.
Trump claims Freeman is behind the fake ballots were brought out after the closing of a vote county location at State Farm Arena, a debunked conspiracy theory spread across the internet and spurred by a portion of surveillance video from the arena showing people bringing crates of ballots out from under tables. A fuller version of the video shows election workers placing the crates under tables at the site to keep them out of the way of workers.
The Reuters story relates the frightful episodes Freeman has had to deal with since the end of the election.
Freeman made a series of 911 emergency calls in the days after she was publicly identified in early December by the president’s camp. In a Dec. 4 call, she told the dispatcher she’d gotten a flood of “threats and phone calls and racial slurs,” adding: “It’s scary because they’re saying stuff like, ‘We’re coming to get you. We are coming to get you.’”
Two days later, a panicked Freeman called 911 again, after hearing loud banging on her door just before 10 p.m. Strangers had come the night before, too. She begged the dispatcher for assistance. “Lord Jesus, where’s the police?” she asked, according to the recording, obtained by Reuters in a records request. “I don’t know who keeps coming to my door.”
“Please help me.”
Freeman quit the temporary election job, which paid $16 per hour, because of the threatening calls and other harassment. Her daughter cut her trademark blonde braids and took a leave of absence from her $36,000 per year state job out of fear for her safety.