Threats of Violence Force Georgia Polling Stations to Request Police Protection

This is America, and perhaps some among us need a little reminder of that fact from time to time.

This is a nation built on the idea that every vote counts, and that we will never retract that right from our fellow countrymen.  Sure, we’re not going to win every election, but that’s the point.  We’re Americans, damn it, and we deal with adversity and loss with both grace and tenacity.  Those who would threaten our sacred right to vote, especially if they employ violence to do so, are spitting in the figurative faces of our Founding Fathers.

Now, as Georgians look to complete the 2020 Senate elections in a Tuesday runoff, threats of violence have forced police to the polls.

Authorities in Cherokee County have placed officers at its 40 polling places just north of Atlanta following threats ahead of Georgia’s Senate runoff elections on Tuesday.

A number of county employees received a threatening email on Sunday “regarding threats to polling locations on election day,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The newspaper said employees in other Georgia counties received the same email.

The FBI and Georgia Bureau of Investigation are investigating the threats.

Joseph Cousin, the pastor at Allen Temple African Methodist Episcopal Church in Woodstock, told the newspaper that the state’s Democratic Party canceled a “Women for Warnock” event at the church, a polling location, due to the threats.

The election in Georgia will decide the balance of the Senate and, in a politically-charged nation, we must all do our part to keep our civility in check.