Death threats got so serious that Raffensperger and his wife stopped having grandchildren visit

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said he and his wife took a “several-month break” from having their grandchildren visit as people anonymously sent them multiple death threats amid his feud with former President Donald Trump over the 2020 election.

Raffensperger, a Republican, spoke out on Friday about his family’s experience dealing with months of threats, such as one that read, “You and your family will be killed very slowly,” after his wife, Tricia, separately went public with the terrorizing messages.

“This is not acceptable behavior to threaten the wives, the children, the family of people that work for the government or even the government workers,” Tricia Raffensperger told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “They didn’t sign up for this. They’re employees. And I don’t believe that elected officials sign up for these death threats either. It’s time that elected officials on both sides hold our sides accountable.”

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Reuters published a report on Friday detailing the threats individuals texted and emailed the Raffenspergers, as well as other elected officials and their families since the November contest — some of which were shared with the FBI and Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

“We plan for the death of you and your family every day,” someone said in a message to Tricia Raffensperger.

Another threat told her a family member was “going to have a very unfortunate incident.”

Another messenger created a fake email address using her husband’s name as if to role-play.

“I married a sickening whore. I wish you were dead,” the message read.

Tricia said she canceled visits with her grandchildren amid the threatening messages.

“I couldn’t have them come to my house anymore,” she said. “You don’t know if these people are actually going to act on this stuff.”


“We just never wanted to have our grandchildren over here, and all of a sudden, a situation arose,” Tricia Raffensperger, whose home was reportedly visited by members of the paramilitary group Oath Keepers, said during the CNN interview. “Even if it wasn’t a violent thing, just people screaming and hollering and shouting at me and my grandchildren hearing that. You know, just think about the emotional scars that would — could happen to them, but also what if they’re actually in physical danger.”

Trump and some of his key allies, such as former Georgia Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, have consistently bashed Raffensperger for asserting Georgia ran a fair election after President Joe Biden narrowly won the state in November. It was he who was on the other end of the storied January phone call wherein Trump pushed him to “find 11,780 votes,” a number that would eclipse the margin by which he lost the state to Biden.

Brad Raffensperger refused while noting, “The data you have is wrong.”

In April, Brad Raffensperger said his office is fully cooperating with Fulton County’s investigation into Trump’s efforts to influence the 2020 election.

Brad Raffensperger, running for reelection in 2022, will face Trump-endorsed Rep. Jody Hice in the Republican primary. The Georgia secretary of state has insisted on multiple occasions that as a Republican, he wanted Trump to win, but he lost in a fair election.

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“People are questioning my integrity. We made sure we ran an honest and fair election,” Brad Raffensperger said Friday. “Am I disappointed in the results? Absolutely, I’m a Republican. A conservative one. But my job is to make sure we have a fair vote.”

Raffensperger was censured at the Georgia GOP convention on Saturday for a “dereliction of his constitutional duty” over the presidential election.

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