Election workers fear threats and intimidation without feds' support in 2026

Feature Bill Gates, an Arizona election official and former Maricopa County supervisor, says that the death threats started shortly after the 2020 presidential election.

"That's when we became pariahs within the Republican Party because we were not willing to sign on to this whole election-being-stolen narrative," Gates, a life-long Republican, told The Register, describing the online and real-life harassment and violence he and other supervisors faced.

A few months later, on January 6, 2021, as armed rioters stormed the US Capitol building, "was the first time that we were instructed by the sheriff to leave the house," Gates remembered. "We had been doxxed at the point."

So Gates and his family spent two nights in hiding.

This happened again on election night in 2022, when law enforcement again told Gates he would be safer if he spent the night in an undisclosed location. The midterm elections in Arizona that ...