Man pleads to threatening Colorado’s top elections official

DENVER — A Nebraska man has pleaded responsible to creating loss of life threats towards Colorado’s high elections official in a what officers say is the primary such plea obtained by a federal job pressure dedicated to defending elections staff throughout the U.S. who’ve been topic to growing threats because the 2020 presidential election.

Travis Ford, 42, pleaded responsible in Denver federal court docket to sending threats to Secretary of State Jena Griswold on social media. Griswold is a nationwide advocate for elections safety who has obtained hundreds of threats over her insistence that the 2020 election was safe and that former President Donald Trump’s claims that it was stolen from him are false.

Thursday’s plea was introduced by the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace in Colorado and was first reported by The Denver Gazette. Ford, a resident of Lincoln, Nebraska, faces as much as two years in jail when he’s sentenced Oct. 6.

It is the primary responsible plea obtained by the U.S. Justice Division’s Election Threats Process Power, which was launched final yr to research threats of violence towards elections staff, the workplace stated. FBI brokers in Colorado and Nebraska investigated the case.

“Threats of violence towards election officers are harmful for individuals’s security and harmful for our democracy, and we are going to use each useful resource at our disposal to disrupt and examine these threats and maintain perpetrators accountable,” Legal professional Basic Merrick Garland stated in an announcement.

In response to the announcement, Ford despatched Griswold a collection of threatening messages over Instagram in August. “Do you are feeling protected? You should not,” one learn. One other learn: “Your safety element is way too skinny and incompetent to guard you.”

The U.S. Division of Homeland Safety this month renewed a risk advisory warning of attainable violence, notably for elections officers, staff and different targets by people or small teams motivated by conspiracy theories and “false and deceptive narratives.”

Griswold, a Democrat, instructed Colorado lawmakers earlier this yr that she and different elections officers have obtained hundreds of threats which have prompted many native clerks to give up or take safety coaching so that they really feel protected of their public service work.

The Legislature handed payments to boost safety for Griswold and different statewide office-holders and so as to add protections for all elections staff. Gov. Jared Polis has signed them into legislation.