Anxiety runs deep in Georgia as voters worry about heated rhetoric spurring violence

Tahmida Shamsuddin stands for a portrait outside of her home in Atlanta. Knocking on doors of strangers to talk about the election can be anxiety-inducing, she said. (Matthew Pearson/WABE)

By December 2020, Donald Trump and his allies had been making false claims about widespread election fraud for weeks. Top election officials were facing threats.

Then a young technician who worked for the company that makes Georgia’s voting machines started receiving death threats, too. So did his family. Walking into a press conference at the Georgia State Capitol, Gabriel Sterling, a top elections official in the Secretary of State’s office, was fuming.

“It has all gone too far. All of it. It has to stop,” he said. “Someone’s going to get hurt. Someone’s going to get shot. Someone’s going to get killed.”