HELD ACCOUNTABLE

There’s no debate that being a municipal clerk is a difficult job. Since the 2020 election, it became a dangerous one, as well. Several Michigan election officials  let it be known that after the election, they faced threats, including death threats. Former Rochester Hills Clerk Tina Barton, now a senior elections expert with The Elections Group, received a voicemail filled with explicit language threatening her family. On August 11 this year, the Justice Department announced an Indiana man was arrested for that threat and appeared in federal court in Detroit on the charge of sending an interstate threatening communication to an election worker. According to court documents, on or about November 10, 2020, Andrew Nickels, 37, of Carmel, IN, allegedly called Barton and said,  in part, “[Y]ou frauded out America of a real election…Guess what, you’re gonna pay for it, you will pay for it...[T]en million plus patriots will surround you when you least expect it, and your little infantile Deep State security agency has no time to protect you because they’ll be bought out and we’ll [expletive] kill you…[Y]ou will [expletive] pay for your [expletive] lying ass remarks…We will [expletive] take you out. [Expletive] your family, [expletive] your life, and you deserve a [expletive] knife to the throat…Watch your [expletive] back…watch your [expletive] back.” If convicted, Nickels faces five years in prison. Barton posted on LinkedIn, “I’m hopeful that today’s arraignment sends a strong message that threatening election officials is unacceptable and illegal.”