Threat of violence in the name of ‘saving America’ worries Georgia election official

Atlanta, Georgia: He was the Republican election official who went viral for debunking Donald Trump’s 2020 election lies and warning that the former president’s conspiracy theories would end up getting someone killed.

Four years later, Gabe Sterling is less worried about an organised mob storming the US Capitol and more fearful about radicalised individuals sparking violence at this year’s election due to inflammatory rhetoric he says is being fuelled by both side of politics.

“I’m not concerned about a militia getting together and marching in to do something,” Sterling tells this masthead as the battle between Trump and Kamala Harris hits its final stretch.

Republican official in Georgia, Gabe Sterling.Credit: Farrah Tomazin

“What I am concerned about is mentally unstable human beings who think they’re saving America because he or she said ‘these people are evil and I have to stop them’.

“We can get the organised groups. The FBI does a great job with that. But the individual radicalised person is next to impossible stop and that’s my bigger fear overall.”

While there are still two weeks until election day, early voting is already underway in most states, including Georgia, where more than 1.5 million people have voted since the polls opened a week ago. Sterling is the chief operations officer there, running Georgia’s election system alongside Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

The so-called Peach State was a Republican stronghold for years until Democrats flipped it in 2020, culminating in the infamous phone call Trump made to Raffensperger, demanding the Republican election chief “find” 11,780 votes so he could overturn Biden’s victory.

An audio recording of Donald Trump speaking to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, is played during a 2022 hearing of the Select Committee to investigate attack on the US Capitol.Credit: Bloomberg

Before that, Trump and his allies had spent weeks spreading false claims about widespread fraud taking place and attacking Georgia’s election system to such an extent that officials overseeing the state’s recount began receiving death threats.

In a press conference that went viral on December 1, Sterling – who by then had become a fixture of cable news as an even-tempered source of election information – unloaded on Trump.

“Someone’s going to get hurt, someone’s going to get shot, someone’s going to get killed!” he said, visibly fed up and furious. “It’s not right.”

Someone did eventually get shot and killed as a mob stormed the US Capitol weeks later in a desperate bid to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.

But as this masthead travelled around the battleground states in recent weeks, there has been no shortage of Americans who still believe the last election was rigged – despite there being no evidence of widespread fraud.

“Trump’s responsible for that,” Sterling said, during a frank discussion in his conference room at the Georgia State Capitol Building in Atlanta on Monday (Tuesday AEDT).

“Plus there are people who are grifters who make money off this [election lie] and then there’s this bucket of people who are the true believers … and it’s next to impossible to change their mind.”

So did the lies about the 2020 election make him doubt his own party?

“Let me step away from my government job for a second,” the 53-year-old Republican says, choosing his words carefully.

“Ever since Donald Trump won, we have lost lots of things. We lost the Senate. We almost lost the House. We’ve gone from 32 governors to 26 governors. He himself has won an election, but we have not won the popular vote in this country since 2004. All these are problems for people who believe in the things I believe in, and I think only by telling the truth, following the law and setting an example do we then win back the trust of voters.”

The comments came as Trump, campaigning in North Carolina, acknowledged he has seen no evidence this year’s election would be unfair but continued to sow doubts anyway.

“Unfortunately, I know the other side, and they are not good,” he said, suggesting the Democrats might cheat.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, attend a campaign event in Brookfield, Wisconsin on Monday.Credit: AP

Harris, meanwhile, teamed up with Republican Liz Cheney to target moderate voters in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

“We might not agree on every issue,” said Cheney, the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney. “But she is somebody you can trust.”

But as the election enters its final two weeks, the threat of violence against election workers persists.

To mitigate risks, Georgia election workers now have a special text messaging service to raise alarm if they are in danger. Officials have also stocked up on nalaxone – used to counter fentanyl overdoses – after letters laced with the opioid landed in the mail.

Last week, the FBI and a hazmat team were called in after white powder was sent to the secretary of state’s office.

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