LOS ANGELES, March 26, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - A man who repeatedly threatened to
kill an Arizona election official was sentenced to two and a half years in
prison on Monday, as investigators warned of increasing hostility towards
poll workers ahead of this year's high-stakes US votes.

Joshua Russell, from Ohio, directed numerous expletive-laden tirades against
the person chiefly responsible for the smooth running of the 2022 mid-term
election in Arizona, the state's department of justice said.

"Mr. Russell made three phone calls to the office of then-Secretary of State
Katie Hobbs threatening to put her in the ground or in a grave," department
chief Gary Restaino told reporters on the day Russell was jailed for two-and-
a-half years.

Hobbs, who is now governor of the southwestern state, has for years been the
target of vitriol from people who falsely believe that Donald Trump won the
2020 election.

His narrow loss in Arizona was one of several key upsets that saw Joe Biden
swept into the White House, with the previously Republican-led state becoming
something of a Ground Zero for election deniers.

Trump, who has once again clinched the Republican Party nomination, continues
to insist without evidence that he won the poll.

Russell's sentencing comes just weeks after a Massachusetts man was jailed
for three and a half years for threatening to bomb the Arizona secretary of
state's office.

Federal charges have also been filed against five other people who have made
threats against officials in the state.

"Death threats are not debate," said John Keller, a member of a Justice
Department task force dedicated to the security of election officials in the
United States.

"Death threats do not contribute to the marketplace of ideas. Death threats
are not First Amendment protected speech.

"Death threats and any threats of violence are condemnable, criminal acts and
they will be met with the full force of the Department of Justice."

A 2022 survey showed intimidation of poll workers is alarmingly common in the
bitterly divided United States, with one in four telling the Democracy Fund
foundation they had been threatened.

Tensions are expected to remain high ahead of this November's rematch between
Trump and Biden, with significant chunks of the Republican Party fully signed
on to Trump's "stolen election" narrative.