Of the 2,000 threats reported by election workers, 20 people have been charged.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a stern warning to those who would seek to harm election officials.
"I will reiterate again today, these cases are a warning if you threaten to harm or kill an election worker or official or volunteer, the Justice Department will find you and we will hold you accountable," Garland said at a press event.
But more than three years into the Justice Department's announcement of a task force to "promptly and vigorously prosecute" offenders who threaten election workers, lawmakers and election officials have raised alarms about the federal government's ability to effectively prosecute cases and deter threats ahead of the November election.
The task force has been accused of a lack of transparency over its investigations into election officials and advocates who say accountability has been slow to materialize-after yearslong delays-and cases far too few and too slim have been taken up by the task force following an onslaught of threats related to the 2020 election.
Of the more than 2,000 threats referred to the FBI by election workers, the Justice Department has opened 100 investigations, according to figures released in April. In total, the task force has charged 20 people and landed 15 convictions.
The numbers are modest, in part, because many of the threats received by election workers are protected by the First Amendment. But that has done little to reassure the community of election workers and officials who have been left disillusioned by the threats and harassment.
"It makes it really difficult to want to do the job when it also feels like your community, your state and your nation have turned on you," said Amy Cohen, executive director of the National Association of State Election Directors. "You never know really if what you're submitting is being investigated. You never really have any understanding of why something isn't investigated."
Hired security personnel wait for voters outside the Leon County Supervisor of Elections office November 3, 2020 in Tallahassee, Florida.
In a request for comment, a DOJ spokesperson highlighted the outreach that the task force has done to election workers, including more than 100 meetings and trainings, and providing support to FBI field offices and to U.S. attorneys' offices in expanding their capacity to investigate threats to election workers.
And ahead of the November election, Garland said "task force representatives" will be on the ground meeting with election workers and hosting events with the FBI to address issues and potential crimes.
But as Election Day approaches and the threats against election workers persist, that call for action to the Justice Department has grown louder. In July, Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Georgia, launched an investigation into the DOJ's work protecting election workers and a group of senators last month wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland that "more must be done to counter these persistent threats and ensure that election workers can do their jobs."
The senators also requested the DOJ to report on the number of threats identified by the task force, and how many investigations and prosecutions were ongoing. The Justice Department this week did not respond to a request for information about the task force's progress.
'Help is on the way'
The DOJ task force was created last year, amid a wave of threats directed toward state and local election officials in the lead-up to and aftermath of the 2020 election. The task force was led by the Public Integrity Section at DOJ and was responsible for vetting individual reports of threats before working with United States attorney's offices and FBI field offices to investigate and prosecute those cases.
"A threat to any election official, worker, or volunteer is, at bottom, a threat to democracy," Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco wrote in a memo to prosecutors in June 2021. "We will promptly and vigorously prosecute offenders to protect the rights of American voters, to punish those who engage in this criminal behavior, and to send the unmistakable message that such conduct will not be tolerated."
The publicized announcement was cause for celebration by election officials, who hoped it would act to deter and cut into the tide of threats flooding their offices. By the time 17% of local election officials reported having been threatened because of their job, and 32% reported feeling unsafe, according to a survey of election officials conducted in April 2021 by the bipartisan Brennan Center for Justice.
"When the DOJ announced a task force, we were thrilled in a lot of ways, because it was like, 'Oh, there's going to be help. Help is on the way,'" said Cohen.
But in the three years since the announcement, election officials have continued to bear the brunt of elevated threats against them, from physical attacks to fentanyl-laced letters, swatting incidents, threatening voicemails, and violent threats on social media.
In a survey conducted by the Brennan Center in May 2024, nearly 40% of local election officials described threats, harassment, or abuse compared to earlier surveys.
"The pressures that my colleagues fall under nationwide -- over things that are literally unfounded -- has become hard to deal with every day for folks who didn't sign up for that kind of pressure," said Dag Robinson, the county clerk in Harney County, Oregon.
'Justice is not swift'
Despite fanfare it received in 2021, the task force got off to a slow start: A year into its creation, the Justice Department had charged only four cases after reviewing over 1,000 referrals involving hostile or harassing contact, then-Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite told a meeting of election officials in 2022. Only 5% of referrals resulted in actual investigations.
While the task force had a slightly better success rate over three years -- charging 20 individuals, conviction of 15 and loss of one -- several election officials told ABC News the paltry number of cases compared with the thousands of threat referrals is desponding.
"I could certainly understand how my friends and colleagues across this country wouldn't feel supported as well," said Julie Wise, director of elections for King County, Washington.
Officials in the state say the Colorado secretary of state, Jena Griswold, has been subjected to thousands of abusive, harassing, and threatening communications over the past two years; many contain messages advocating that violence be visited upon her.
"You have a family, Jena," one user said on social media. "Think about that before you continue."
Of the 1,140 threats referred to the Department of Justice by Griswold's office since January of 2023, 13 have led to investigations and one case has been prosecuted, according to her office.
Election officials nationwide say charges have, in some instances, been announced two or three years from the time a threat was made.
"It seems as though justice moves slowly, and I have seen that some clerks who were assaulted or threatened from the 2020 election just were [only recently] able to give their victim impact statements for the sentencing of those individuals -- so justice is not swift." said Barb Byrum, county clerk in Ingham County, Michigan.
'Legally off the hook'
Justice Department officials say charging cases requires a high burden of proof - and many of the threats targeting election workers are protected speech under the First Amendment. In order to be able to secure a conviction in a case involving threats, prosecutors need to prove - beyond reasonable doubt - that the statements will probably be reasonably perceived as threatening, referred to as "true threats."
"One of the biggest challenges in bringing these criminal cases is parsing what is a true threat from what is constitutionally protected speech," said Jared Davidson, counsel at nonprofit Protect Democracy.
Statements that are vague, hyperbolic, or figurative are often impossible to prosecute as threats in a criminal context, where defense attorneys can parse out the meaning of a statement to create reasonable doubt, said Davidson.
The phrase "We're going to take you out," for example, could be construed as at least double entendres, depending on the context in which the utterance is made. That said, Eugene Volokh, professor emeritus at UCLA School of Law, said, "In context, that could mean 'kill you,' or it could mean 'throw you out of office'".
"A 'vast majority' of communications targeting election officials, no matter how offensive, were protected by the First Amendment and could not be prosecuted," then-Assistant Attorney General Polite said in 2022.
After prosecutors charged a Nevada man who, in the days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, allegedly made several threatening calls to the Nevada secretary of state's office -- including saying that they were "all going to. die" and hoping they would "all go to jail for treason" -- a jury acquitted the defendant, illustrating how tough it is to prove a true threat.
Adding to the challenge of bringing these cases, is a 2023 Supreme Court decision that settled the standard for true threats by finding that a defendant must have some awareness that their statement would be viewed as threatening.
"If you say something ambiguous and you don't even realize that it might be perceived as a threat, you're legally off the hook," said Volokh.
Cohen, who said publicly she has been raising such concerns since early 2022, told ABC News the situation has made many election officials feel that reporting threats can be "pointless," leading many of them no longer to refer threats to the task force. A 2024 Brennan Center survey showed 45% of threats to election workers are unreported.
"It's just hard not to feel, in some ways, like no one is taking this seriously," Cohen said.